There’s nothing like the growl of a Harley when you fire it up—that sound can make anyone feel powerful in an instant. However, all that power is meaningless if you don’t make it home safe. There are a ton of ways to upgrade the safety of your Harley Davidson, but one way many don’t consider is the lighting.
When you modify the lights on your Harley, you’ll enjoy plenty of other benefits, too. LEDs are the future of lighting, but what makes them so great? Read on to learn nine reasons to get LED lights for your Harley Davidson.
Improved Vision
The addition to your bike that gives you the best chance of driving safely is you. Unfortunately, all the quick thinking in the world won’t help you if you don’t notice the obstruction in the road until you’re right on top of it. Upgrading your incandescent bulbs to LED lights will shine more light on every situation, giving you precious extra seconds to spot danger before it’s upon you.
LEDs have two major benefits over stock bulbs in the lighting department: punch and spread. When you think about punch, think about your light cutting through the darkness—the distance you can see is the “punch” of your lightbulb. On the other hand, a laser is a light with a lot of punch.
As you may have guessed, a laser won’t help you much on the back of a bike, because there is no spread that illuminates around the beam even though the beam punches a great distance. LEDs pack a bigger punch and spread out more than traditional stock bulbs, meaning you have a longer and wider field of view when riding at night.
Both these factors are crucial to a safe ride. The punch allows you to spot obstacles that are far away while the spread illuminates the sides of the road to help you spot pedestrians and animals about to cross.
More People See You
While increasing your field of view is important, don’t forget how critical it is for others to see you. Even the most diligent rider may miss something, causing them to rely on other drivers to keep them safe. Too many motorcycle accidents involve the other driver saying, “I didn’t see them.”
Bright LED lights help make your presence known on the road, so you and the other driver have ample time to react in a dangerous situation.
Reduced Battery Drain
The battery in any vehicle can die overnight when you forget to turn your lights off. Even though they may not seem like much, stock lights are great at draining batteries dry, meaning you need to deal with a significant hassle more frequently. Dead batteries are never fun, but they’re even worse when you have to handle it every other year.
LED lights are less strenuous on batteries because they use less energy than incandescent lights. On average, LEDs use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs—that’s a huge discrepancy! If you ride your bike at night often, this will benefit you greatly because you won’t need to constantly change your battery.
This is also a more sustainable option. The less power you use, the smaller of a carbon footprint you leave behind. While switching to LED lights isn’t as helpful as buying solar panels, every action you take toward sustainability helps the planet.
Closer Color Temperature to Sunlight
You may not realize how big of an impact the color temperature of your lights can have. Every light bulb has a color temperature, from the warm yellows and oranges of incandescent bulbs to the white daylight temperature of LEDs. These colors can be converted to Kelvin, and our brains have an easier time distinguishing things at certain color temperatures.
We require the least amount of time to decipher what something is when it’s close to the color temperature of daylight, which is around 5500K. While you can get LED bulbs at 5000-6000K, incandescent bulbs come in a range from 2700K to 3000K. While a few extra milliseconds may not seem like much, taking more time to identify danger is never good.
Increased Durability
Incandescent bulbs work by heating up a filament. Naturally, this process wears the filament down over time, making it more susceptible to breaking. When you ride your bike over bumps or potholes, it’s possible to accidentally disable your headlight, which would leave you in a tough spot. LEDs are far more durable as they do not use any easily breakable wires to provide you with light.
Long-Lasting Light
Typical incandescent lights can only last 500 to 1,000 hours before you need to replace them. At Eagle Lights, all our lights have a lifetime guarantee—if your headlights go out, contact us for a replacement. That’s how confident we are that LEDs are superior to incandescent lights! For motorcyclists who ride their bikes frequently, this is a great deal that makes perfect sense. You’ll save a lot of money over time!
Smaller Size
While a more compact size isn’t a huge deal to everyone, it makes storage much simpler.
Instant Response
Even though you may not notice it, incandescent bulbs all have a warm-up time—a time when they aren’t operating to their fullest extent. If you flick on your lights and they don’t show you the whole picture, you may be in for a close call. LED lights operate at their fullest the second you flip the switch, making them far safer to drive with.
Plug-and-Play
Some lights are really annoying to install, requiring you to understand how to properly wire things on your bike. Our LED motorcycle lights from Eagle Lights are completely plug-and-play friendly. That means you won’t need to spend a ton of time in your garage frustrated before you can enjoy your upgraded bike. Disconnect the old lights and hook up the new ones—then you’re ready to go!
Now that you know these nine reasons to get LED lights for your Harley Davidson, take a break from upgrading the power of your bike and make a small tweak to exponentially improve your safety. You and your loved ones will appreciate it!
