suppose it depends on what kinda adventure riding you do. My observations over the years are:

1. Like Mollydog noted, the reality is, no matter how sure you are that you wont ride at night, you will. To not prepare for it is like not bringing tyre levers with you because you dont plan to get a flat tyre.

2. Getting more light on the road makes a huge difference in riding at night, especially on poorly lit roads or offroad.

3. Its never as simple as getting more light on the road or blasting out more light. The shape of the beam is very important. A cone of light blasting out from a non shaped aftermarket beam is not really adding much value. It results in the foreground being very well illuminated, which then shrinks your pupils and means you lose your distance vision, due to the overbright foreground. The best results are obtained from a proper headlight beam which is designed with a beam shape that is relatively weaker in the foreground than a simple cone of light and more concentrated towards the point where the light hits the horizon / beam cutoff. Think about it.... if you have a light source 1 metre above the road and you are trying to illuminate a road surface stretching in front of you 100m, the best result is to have that road surface evenly lit, as it would be by daylight. How you get the road surface 100m away just as bright as the road surface 3m away from the light source? Its only possible with a very very precise beam pattern, and that usually means projector lights, not reflectors or LEDs without projector lenses.

4. Additional bolt on lights need to be mounted wisely. The vast majority are not. They are just waiting to be broken off in an impact with a tree or the ground.

5. Bearing all the above in mind, I have a strong preference to (i) always have vastly improved light over stock, because stock is always crap. (ii) improve the standard high / low lighting rather than bolt on additional lights. Many years of experimentation has resulted in me usually using retrofitted bi-xenon projector lights from cars on the adventure bikes I build and set up, in place of the stock lights.

A set of these on the bike is by far the best lighting I have ever had on an adventure bike, and that includes a direct comparison with an earlier 1200GSA with 4 aftermarket HID Hella lights on it. Bi-xenon: Sportbike Stage II Kit



Many bikes have single 7 inch round headlight units, easy premade retrofit bixenon units exist for those.
http://www.futurevisionhid.com/h6024...headlight.html. If you cant be bothered doing your own conversions, there are companies that do it for you.... Sick HIDs

The distribution of light is much much more important than quantity of light in terms of visual utility. That output needs to be shaped, ideally by a projector lens. Avoid over-illuminating the foreground.

Getting back to the OPs question ... "Additional" lights are un-necessary. Better results come from replacing the stock lights with better ones. And additional lights in my view absolutely are unsexy - to me they dont look professional. To me they look weekend warriorish.

But hey, Each to their own .... some ppl think this looks hot:

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I've had some huge Hella lights mounted on the nose of my vw golf mkII when crossing Morocco and I really liked having them. A beam that could sign to Saturn so strong. Useful for driving, or trying to pitch a tent in total darkness. And the headlights of a 30 year old car are not the best anyway. So afterwards ditched the car and kept the lights. If I ever get a new 'cool' car I will bolt them on. Looks nice, works well.

I'm coming to this thread from a different angle, and that's daytime riding. In France, as with a lot of other countries , it is a legal requirement on modern machines to ride with dipped headlight, indeed they are wired in to the ignition nowadays. This is supposedly a safety feature, which does work to a certain extent in dull conditions, but as soon as the sun comes out pretty useless on it's own. Think about the SMIDSY situation of an emerging vehicle not seeing a motorcycle because it's not moving against the background. The emerging vehicle driver may not even see a single headlight, or even attach much importance to it as it doesn't give the appearance of anything significant in size, but put some width into the light display and it's a different matter, you appear much bigger and more threatening, and other road users tend to notice and be more careful.

I completely agree with Walter Colebatch on beam pattern for those days when a bit of night riding is unavoidable, but equally I am a fan of some bright day time running lights placed at a good width on the front and not on the same level as the headlight. ( lower).

At the same time good reflectors placed wide or pannier lights as discussed are good at giving you width at the rear, which makes overtakers give you more room as they pass.

It works for me - been doing it for years!

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-''It is better to walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction''. ( Herman Siu)
-'' Live life then give life '' (www.lltgl.org.uk)

Agree that good DRLs (which are increasigly available these days) are not a bad idea.

I tend to ride on high beam during sunny days, because as you say, low beam in sunshine is pretty much invisible to cars.

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It is not a supposedly safety mesure : it IS a safety mesure ! It is not because it is less effective in bright sun that it is not effective in general. Quite a lot of the accidents en Europe are due to drivers in cars not seeing you. Having your light on helps a lot to be seen.
Also concerning the adage "do not drive at night "(in remote areas of course like SE Asia) almost every body understand that but many still put aditional lights to their bike and then finish by driving at night. It is not less dangerous because you have good lights and can see what's in front of you, but it is dangerous because if a car or a truck comes facing you you cannot see what's in the road anymore for a rather long moment. In Europe for instance it is ok because you can drive with this moment of blindness as there is normaly nothing in the road (although not all the time !!!) but in SE Asia for instance there are so many bufalos, kids, scooters without light, dogs etc you name it, at night on the roads that you are at great risks!
My advice would be : keep your bike light without any aditional light hehe so that you will not be tempted to drive at night (once again i am not speaking for areas like Norway !)

Into head on overtaking traffic in Kazakhstan I was more than happy that I had the LED spots to switch on!

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Mark
http://chasingdreams2014.blogspot.co.uk/

It's your choice don't be put off by what you here off other people, you can be court out by bad weather, traveling that distance, how many time you here some one had to push on into the night as they had some sort of machanical problem, if you fit them and don't use them good, if you don't fit them and you needed them, bad.
I used a a reasonable priced pair off eBay for £20 each on a 36 hour endro through the night they worked great, I'll give a link to them when I get home

"I tend to ride on high beam during sunny days,"

Ah, you are the one.
Guess you get used to car drivers turning their lights on to high beam too so they don't get dazzled.

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Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

I used some thing like these but I only payed £37 for the pair, they came from China, they were really bright though the night, they lite the trails up great
I've just seen these on eBay for £13 a pair with free delivery, the same ones I used, these are really good water proof, bulbs have 30,000 hours use

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item...obalID=EBAY-GB

? How do you get dazzled by a headlight on a bright sunny day ??

So no, I dont have to get used to car drivers turning their lights up because none of the tens of thousands I have passed have ever been dazzled during the day I guess.

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I agree with what's said. No matter what your intentions, You may have no choice than to ride at night.

I HATE it and it always happens in the worst places. I got stuck at the Ethiopian border for 5 hours and it was going dusk as I left.

No way I was stopping in that mental and corrupt border town so tried to make the 50 mile trip to the next town. It went dark with only 20 miles to go and by dark I mean PITCH BLACK...

The crappy DRZ headlight was no use. I nearly hit two cows and a few trees. In the end I ran over a huge rock which jammed into my tyre and tore a 3" hole in it. I slept in a field that night and it was a nightmare to sort a tyre repair. Long story.

Anyway... Get the best headlight you can without going crazy.

I've considered a cheap Ebay pair of LED lights for £20. For use in an emergency. Wired direct to the battery with a hidden switch or relay.

For £20 you can't complain if they don't last too long.

2PCS 125W CREE U5 Motorcycle LED Headlight 3000LMW Driving Fog Head Spot Light | eBay

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I have been dazzled by super bright lights in day time ... from oncoming motorcycles! Not so much dazzled really ... more like hypnotized, causing a total target fixation towards the oncoming bike. I fought it off ... but at first it really did get me. Never seen lights that bright on a bike nor a car.

It was a guy on BMW R1200GS with 4 extra spot lights mounted up. Stunningly bright. His headlight also SUPER BRIGHT ... was modulating type. Very hypnotic affect. First glance I thought it was a cop, but our cops don't have lights that bright.

Would have loved to have lights like that riding through mountain tracks in Baja at night. As it was, seemed totally inappropriate for road use, day or night.

Good news is this sort of over kill is rare around here ... even in BMW heavy San Fran Bay area.

In most civilised countries it is illegal to drive with fog lights on day or night unless atmospheric conditions absolutely require it and it is always illegal to drive with high beam or driving lights on within X00 metres of another vehicle day and night.

Must be a reason for it - wonder what it might be.

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Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

You can easily be blinding in the daytime. Usually by people aiming their lights too high. Stare into a 125W bulb at 100 metres at any time of day and you'll go blind... With two of them on a flood setting and it's like riding towards the sun.

There is NO EXCUSE for blinding lights in day time. It's just total selfish poser behaviour.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I'm not keen on daylight running lights on motorbikes,just my opinion, they do have there uses as people say traveling it's best to have them than not, with them attached to the bike they are not really a problem, you can even leave them not conected till they are needed.
It's only when you have a problem like touring ted had, now he will not be without them on tours, same as me.