So we all share one thing in common besides riding 2 wheels.... Staying seen and staying alive. Kinda reminds me of Travolta doing the dance in '78 "Ah, ah, ah, ah stayin alive"
Okay, so in my constant quest of minuscule improvements, I spent hours of research (Awesome Googling activities) finding the brightest, baddest, and most non- conforming headlight to make me a better seen rider. You all know the feeling you get as you are barreling down the road and someone in the oncoming lanes is deciding if they will "make" the left turn. Of course, we 2 wheelers with one headlight are never really seen by the SUV cell phone texting drivers.
My final solution was to avoid the masses of "blue" headlights that promise the brightness of the sun. I wanted something different. My search let me to the Philips MotoVision lamp that emits an orange glow in the headlight bucket's reflector that oncoming traffic sees as brilliant orange. The reviews were pretty stellar, but then I found that most riders prefer the PIAA lineup of lamps which brought me to the PIAA Ion Crystal lamp. This one delivers a really white light in appearance yet has a yellow tinge which makes it look different from the sea of Blues and purples of the road. The lamp cost me $49 at Cyclegear, however online retailers have them for much less than that. I haven't taken the bike on the night time road yet but the achievement I am after, looks very promising. So in this quick review, we are looking at the PIAA H4 Ion Crystal head lamp.
It's hard to photograph light, so I fired right back at it with full flash which gave me the closest rendition to what my eyes have seen.
In this first photo is the stock Philips H4 60/55W lamp
In this photo is the new PIAA Ion Crystal lamp. You can see it is much brighter and appears whiter at the same wattage draw. It even has a cool looking blue sparkly in the headlight bucket. As I back away, you see the headlight bucket flare with some yellow mixed in the blue. Across the garage floor, the light looks white but at the back of the garage door, the light shows some yellow. I actually like it. Supposedly from my research on lamps, yellow is the best color tone for the human eye to discern things in the dark. I'll see how it feels during night riding.
Side view:
Garage reflection:
Overall view:
So I end this with a final thought......
You don't always see what you think you will get
Mmmmmm, Scrumptious.....
Thoughts? I mean about the headlight not the food! (BTW, it looks crappy, but it does taste pretty darn good!)
