LED Spot Light fixture on KTM Duke

So this was pending for lonnng. I had purchased these two LED spot lights, bought it from aliexpress.com as I got a good deal (mind you they take 40-50 days to reach India via free shipping). So I was in procrastinating mode and never got it fixed and just kept asking around friends on the ideas on where should I fit it, the clamps and fixtures and all. I was acting lazy. Now after moving to Gurgaon this was on top of the list and last Sunday I managed to go to Carol Bagh to get it done. This write-up is just to share the pictures of the installation process for other riders to see if they want to do something similar. 

These are the lights and they come with complete set of clamps and allen keys and bolts along with them.

(Metzeler in the pic above got changed to Michelin Pilot Street Radial soon)

I was hesitant in putting these lights on the forks cuz didn't want to mess with the paint and I also didn't want to open the fork clamps. So our guy Mr. Saleem suggested that I can put the lights with the help of a strip on these joints on the headlight casing:

After being satisfied that there will be no problem in turning the handlebar completely and the strip will withstand the load of the lights even on a day long ride I gave a go-ahead to the mechanic. He quoted Rs. 300 to fix the lights which seemed pretty reasonable amount. 

He removed the headlight casing and the panel cover on top. Meanwhile I managed to take a transformer picture of myself:

                              

This is how the metal strips looked after fixing:

The electrical connection given was not direct to the battery but with the enging ignition. I am sorry I missed the wiring part and hence not able to explain it in detail here. He fixed the switch with the joint of the LH mirror and took the wires within the cable locks on the handle bar.

And the switch:

After this when he tried to fit the headlight casing back, it wasn't fitting properly and so he told me that he will need to cut a bit towards the end.

       

Once fitted back, this is how it looked.

                    

This post is incomplete. I will complete it by updating it with the review of the lights itself.

Till then, keep riding!

Part II! (Updated- 1-May-2015)

Today I clicked some pictures with and without these lights on for comparison purpose and you can see the difference below:

1. Headlight low beam, LED  OFF /ON (click the pic to enlarge)

First pic is with LED off and second pic is with LED on. As you can see there is an increased , longer visibility (2nd circle on top) and wider range (1st circle on top, and botton two circles).

2. Headlight high beam, LED  OFF /ON (click the pic to enlarge)

I rarely ride in high beam mode because I hate riding against it myself so I don't want others to suffer because of my high beam. However in high beam mode, there is small difference in range and visibility with these spot lights on. 2nd pic is with LED lights on. 

Now you can decide if this difference and increase in range and visibility is good enough for you to buy these lights or not!

However they look cool too ! 

My next plan is to install two jerry can holders on the bike. If you know any leads do give suggestions by commenting. Thanks!

Ride Safe!

        

Ride to NH7 Weekender-100kmph never seemed so slow

Old Post:

So I missed the Royal Enfield Rider Mania this year but had to have my share of a big party this year too. And things happened to be in my favor to ride for the NH7 weekender Bangalore. Rest of the blog will deal with ride to Bangalore from Chennai, 2 days at the weekender party and then the ride back to Chennai.

I was riding a Classic Chrome and Akash was riding his Anesthesia, as he likes to call his bike. And I’m sure riding on his bike anyone would lose his senses and set himself free. We started at 6 am on December 15th. We had plenty of time as the event was to start at 4pm . Akash’s engine was almost new so we had to stop every 100km for his bike to cool down. This is the pic when we stopped for a tea. 

We were comfortably doing speeds of 80-100 and entered Bangalore by 12.30pm and after that we got stuck in Bangalore traffic for an hour. We rode straight to the venue which was Embassy Horse Riding school, quiet far at the outskirts. We reached the venue at 2.30pm. There was special parking zone for Royal Enfield riders and inside RE had set up a special Royal Enfield zone. So here is the layout of the venue, which consisted of different music stations playing their music at the same time

The Layout of the venue

So there were stations for rock bands, dubstep,the dewarists, heavy metal , wolves den(Bacardi) . Over 2 days number of bands will play live. So the agenda was to get drunk and dance to the tunes of favorite bands! They called the happiest music festival, and yes it was for sure.

Whenever the heavy metal arena echoed with the heavy riffs, you would notice people in black tee rushing and running to that place. Few ground rules about the music there:

 

Royal Enfield had set up a riders café inside with their motorcycles parked inside including a Bacardi bar with drinks on the menu like:

Whenever we found some quiet time when bands  stopped playing we would start all the bikes and revv them up high , which was a crowd puller for sure J . Second day at the riders café , we had called in straight from factory Mr, Jai Kumar who does the golden pin striping on Royal Enfield tanks. People were clicking pictures with him and he was a star for sure. People tried their hand at painting on the tank and the best one won a Royal Enfield tank signed by many of the bands playing at all the legs of NH7 weekender bash( Noida,Pune,Bangalore).

So now something about the bands that played there. I witnessed many bands for the first time playing live. Demonic Resurrection, Parikrama, Pentagram(Vishal Dadlani), Shair n Func(Monica Dongra), Midivel Punditz(Karsh Kale), East India Company(Papon),Raghu Dixit Project, Susheela Raman,Bhayanak Maut,Galeez Guruz, Alien Chutney(Vir Das) and others were Scribe, Indian Ocean and many others . For the first time I was open to all genres of music and I quiet liked the progressive beat shit.

Some pictures:

Monica Dongra-Shaair func

Parikrama

Pentagram-Vishal Dadlani

Demonic Resurrection

Bhayanak Maut

Raghu Dixit Project

Vardenchi Custom-Karma

I got one, I wont give it you , its called fuck

First day I got drunk like shit and after that I was sure of one thing that I am not getting back on the bike to go to my friends place. So I went to hotel in cab with colleague where he was staying.

Came back next day for the same fun and masti. I felt there were better bands playing on the second day and I was confused where to go when the bands were playing because I did not want to miss many of them and timings were matching. Well I managed to see everyone in pieces. I became instant fan of Vir Das and his band Alien Chutney when they started playing. Comedy Rock genre. Songs like Harry Potter is a Randi,  You’re a dude if you got the manboobs, The Village man , and gangnam style parody, it was awesome and a hilarious performance by the band and crowd loved it. Later I got a chance to talk to Vir Das for few seconds when he was hanging out with his buddies at the RE café.

Alien Chutney-Vir Das

(I didn’t take my DSLR with me because I wanted to keep my backpack weight as less as possible).

And on the second day I made sure I didn’t even touch alcohol because I had to ride back to my friends place which was quiet far from the venue. As I believe I need to be responsible for others’ safety as well as my own (someone called that ‘sexy’!). So at night 10pm I took the bike and came out of the venue, only to see a car banged into a tree, people were already there to help so I moved on. This is the thing which ruins it all, after so much fun you had, you get a horrible memory for life to spoil by making a small mistake, getting drunk and driving. Its sad.

While asking my way for Indira Nagar, around 10.45pm I stopped at a place and asked directions form a lady who was standing, before she could answer I realized she was a prostitute, biker rule, Thou Shalt open full throttle when a prostitute is spotted. I was thumping away before she came forward and answer.  At last at an easy speed of 60 in the dark, I reached my friends place and slept .

Next day we started the ride quiet late because there was fog early morning. It was almost 9am coming out of Bangalore , and we stopped 28km before Krishnagiri for fueling up and having breakfast. That petrol pump and McD/CCD spot is quiet a breaking spot for riders. Our colleague Adarsh joined us while we were having our coffee. Now he is a ‘rider’, by rider I mean a real rider. So with Akash and Adarsh, I started our ride back to Chennai, and with such good riders your average speed increases easily. They were cruising at 120 easily and I was easily doing 110kmph speed on the 500cc Classic. At 120kmph my bike was shaking which I was not able to control, unlike them. I chose to be in my comfort zone and we all reached Chennai safely at 3pm.

100kmph never seemed so slow. Ride Safe.

(It was great catching up back with Mr. Praveen, and meeting some new people at the after party after the first day. Oh I almost forgot to mention that it was completely a company sponsored trip including petrol :P )

(P.S. : if you think I’m bad at writing, sorry but no sorry.)