Driving lights – Catz XLO

The stock headlight low-beam pattern is actually pretty good, but the high-beam pattern leaves a lot to be desired in terms of brightness and light distribution. Accordingly, I’ve elected to mount a set of driving lights specifically chosen to augment the stock high-beam. The Catz XLO lights are 70w (each) 30-degree-beam-spread driving lights. I chose to use the Catz XLO’s over the ubiquitous PIAA 910-series driving lamps for one primary reason – SIZE. The XLO’s have a much smaller form-factor (PIAA 1000-sized) and weight less than half of the PIAA 910’s. This reduces the stresses imposed by the lights upon the light mounting brackets and supports, and creates less wind resistance. Having settled n a form factor, I chose the XLO’s specifically for their beam spread; they are quite efficient in their projection of light, with little light wasted in the vertical plane. This makes them much more useful as a driving light than, say, the PIAA 1000-series lights (which have a >90 degree beam spread and waste a lot of light in the vertical plane).

The lights themselves are mounted on custom turn-signal-pod-mounted brackets, and are operated via stock high-beam switch. I chose to mount them to the mirror pods in order to give them as much reach as possible (height), as well as keeping them out of harm’s way in the event of a bike tip-over/spill. The brackets are 3/16" 3000-series aluminum, and are retained by being sandwiched between the turn-signal-pod mounting bracket and the rubber spacer for the turn-signal pod mount. The brackets are designed to allow the mirror pods to detach normally in the event of a spill.

The lights are specifically activated only by the high-beam switch in order to reduce the effort required to activate/deactivate them. They are sufficiently bright that I cannot run them in most any circumstance which would not also tolerate high-beam usage, so this setup is efficient and easy to use.