Headlights Street Triple - poor night vision??

[Shorty]

I cracked a headlight and when looking for a replacement I noticed comments on forums about the poor visability at night of the Street Triple lights. The comments seemed to say that the headlight glass (plastic!) wasn't great.
(I think the lights are 5.75")

Can't say I've ridden mine much at night and the lights seemed better than the Bandit I had.

Any comments or ideas please.


Cheers

[Ducatista]

I personally don't like riding bikes at night.
There are a lot of potholes and poor road surfaces that could potentially unseat a rider that you can't see properly.

I have a Ducati monster and I thought the stock headlight was poor, so I got an Osaram Night Racer bulb which provides up to 90% more light.

It was better, but I still don't enjoy riding at night, so on the whole I don't do it.

[Snowy]

One thing you can do which will help most stock setups is fit a seperate wiring loom and relay for the headlamp. This will then bypass all the other power wiring on the bike and have the headlamp powered directly from the battery. This will make it more efficient and therefore provide more light output. It can also allow you to fit higher rated bulbs if thats what you want to do without frying the stock wiring and switches. Be careful if you do that though as more heat is generated and might cause problems with the reflector and lens. There, is , err, also an issue with legality with the higher powered bulbs........

I have fitted relays on both of my bikes and even with just the stock bulbs it made a noticeable improvement. In my opinion the best Halogen bulbs are Philips Xtreme. I have these on one bike but on the other I have HID's which is another conversation altogether ;D I love riding at night :)

[Jon_W]

Depends what you are used to. I like riding at night and do so regularly. I use stock headlights and bulbs and just slow down to suit the conditions. After the superdream and Sv, both of which have very good lights, I found the GS500 appauling, but now I'm used to it. The only bike I wish did have better lights is the 6 volt cub.

Eat carrots...... ;);D

[nick14]

the lights on my zzr 14 are superb on dip and main beam better than most headlights on cars they light up the road brilliantly

[Snowy]

I have used this guy's products a lot over the years and if you're looking to upgrade I can recommend the quality and pricing is very reasonable to. Most of the time I don't think I could make them myself for much less. They are in Japan but shipping costs are not too expensive either - just allow for VAT when its imported.

http://www.easternbeaver.com/Main/Products/products.html

[Nikki]

I cracked a headlight and when looking for a replacement I noticed comments on forums about the poor visability at night of the Street Triple lights. The comments seemed to say that the headlight glass (plastic!) wasn't great.
(I think the lights are 5.75")

Can't say I've ridden mine much at night and the lights seemed better than the Bandit I had.

Any comments or ideas please.


Cheers



I've owned a couple of Bandits in the past and I must admit the lights on them were truly terrible.

I'm not too keen on night riding for the same reasons as Ducatista.

You may find some uprated bulbs help though. I got some from Ebay for my old Triumph ST which were a huge difference.

[Snowy]

Each to their own with this subject. My preference is to first ensure my stock lights are performing as they should be and that meant fitting a relay kit. The stock wiring was absorbing over a volt before it got to the bulb so bypassing that made a big difference. If its an older bike it can be surprising how much power is being sapped by corroded switches and connectors. Its a cheap fix to put that right. Once thats sorted you can then decide to do more or leave alone. My view is that I don't see why I should have to slow down because of ineffective or badly working equipment. I would rather have a good lighting setup and then have the choice to ride at a speed that's appropriate to the conditions without having cage drivers tailgating me waiting to get past.

[Shorty]

Great, thanks for all the info, your replies are appreciated :)

[flick]

Put uprated bulbs in my Street Triple helps a bit. ;)

[Scotty]

Striple lights are pretty good for standard to be honest, on night rides back from the H&C Star would ride behind me with her lights on full beam so we could see where we were going - not a problem for me due to the limited vision in ZX mirrors and very helpful due to the abysmal headlights on my bike... You have nothing to worry about Shorty, I'd swap lights with you any time :)