lighting for night racing

[oregon pampara rider]

Some friends have talked me into doing a 24 hour race this fall, and am debating between the trail tech halogen or hid lights. Any experience with either? I will run a headlamp too.

[wence]

There are a heap of threads on here about floating the ground in the stator and installing a cap or battery.
I did the stator mod , added a very light turn tech battery and now run a hid setup .
Works fine and emits plenty of light.
Cheers Mark

[REVERUP]

Aw yes the 24 hours of starvation ridge, I will see ya down there.

HID is the way I would go.

Some swear by halogen as it is sometimes easier to see the difference in color of the terrain and also costs less to outfit your machine.

HID is a very bright white light and in certain conditions may not let you see contrast in color as well. But runs on far less wattage and puts out far more light compared to a halogen of the same wattage.

If you have any questions regarding this race I can fill you in. Start practicing fast open turn to turn racing and night riding, it will pay off. I look forward to this race every year,there is nothing like it. Team racing is a blast!

Roscoe

[oregon pampara rider]

I'll be racing in the 50 am group with RUTS. I had been thinking to buck up for the hid helmet and on the bike as well, so I think that is what's to be done. I've raced off road buggy's and know that there is no such thing as too much light unless there is a lot of dust or snow in the air. I've trail rode for many years but never raced bikes, so this should be a good adventure. my 300 ec is dialed in very well, so the only excuse for not doing well will be the nut behind the bars.

[GMP]

Do some research and you will find that the Trailtech HIDs are less than reliable. I was looking for bright spot(driving) and daytime running lights for road use on my Ducati. I tried a pair of the VisionX Solstice LED lights in spot beam and I'm very pleased. They are a litle over $100 each, 10W consumption(constant power), and approx the same output in lumens as a 50W halogen. Totally waterproof/shockproof alloy housings and connectors that can be linked together to form a "light bar" of any length. You could get a lot of light out of a simple DC converted 2K-3, and two more on the helmet wold run a lot longer than a halogen or HID on the same battery pack.

[gasgasman]

When Gas Gas did the 24hr race in Alabama in 2008, we used the Trail Tech extreme light.
It worked well and you can select between different beams. The Trail Tech has a quick removal mounting system that allows you to remove it for the day time riding.



You will need a helmet light in case you fall off the bike and the motor dies.

[REVERUP]

Glenn is right Trail Tech has had some issues with the HID ballasts not holding up.
But I will tell you what Trail Tech's service is second to none. Since we live very close to this company it would only make sense to support them, they will do what is right to keep your business. Last year one of my MR16 helmet light ballast went out, so I dropped it off at the race with my address in a bag at their booth. A few days later, sent to my house free of charge my working light.
I'm sure they will be at the 24 hour along with Cyclops another great local company. Last year Baja designs and Night rider didn't make it up to the race they had been there in the past.

The light gasgasman shows is awesome and works good in the woods and open Prairie like the ridge.

We'll probably be riding open X again this year. That depends who's on my team as far as age goes. Already had one drop off with a family conflict.
Roscoe

[oregon pampara rider]

trail tech has been very supportive of RUTS (racers under the SON) so I will be supporting them as well. I have an automotive business that has a HID distributorship and we also have had ballast reliability problems. the same company also supplies BMW and Mercedes hid ballast's.

[gasgasman]

The Trail Tech light I posted has to have a battery to operate.

Boomhauer and myself rebuilt the top end on the 24hr race bike and installed the lighting coil etc the weekend before the 24hr race in AL.
We did not have the light to make sure it worked.
In fact, the Fed Ex truck (with the light) rolled up to the hotel at the same time we did, where we met up with Billy Burns and Jim Senecal.
It was a mad dash to make sure it worked, we did not know about having a battery. So we drove over to Wal-Mart and bought a rechargable RC car battery.Of course that blew out in no time.
Cyclops had a booth at the event, so we bought one and it worked like a champ.

[GMP]

Its true the customer service has an excellent rating. My intended use was a bit different(greater duty cycle) so reliability was more important than absolute light output.