Originally Posted by
krome
Your guess is wrong. My last bike was a 1986 Honda xl600r dual sport with the anemic rectangular headlight. Other bikes I used to ride included a 1980ish Honda XL 250 dual sport, a 1976 Honda CB550 street bike, Honda xl 100 dual sport, among others. My first bike was a Honda z50 that I was given at age 7. As most of my bikes were dual sports, I did do trail riding, sometimes at night. I wasn't racing, so speed wasn't my goal. I also lived out in the country where it actually gets dark.
Except for the 50cc, all had adequate lighting. Not the best, but adequate. The XL600 actually had a H4 bulb, all the others were anemic incandescent. You can't make be believe that they had far more sophisticated optics than cars at the time. Better, but not more sophisticated. I even put 7" Cibie european market lights in my old Volvo 142 because they are better than crappy sealed beams. For the longest time, the Europeans had better optics.
I'd say that nowadays cars and motorcycles have much better lights, but for
decades they got by just fine with their 60/55w incandescents. You cannot dispute that.
Would I have liked to have more lighting? Probably, but there are some laws regarding accessory lighting on the streets.
Maybe you need to get your eyes checked
LOL Sorry - you just confirmed my assumptions. You might be familiar with motorcycles but you obviously aren't familiar with high end motorcycle lighting. German lighting for any given year was head and shoulders above anything coming out of Japan. One of the reasons I coughed up the extra money for BMW's at the time. While Japan got caught up in the hoursepower competition, BMW was producing products that would perform in the real world. Their 3year unlimited milage warranty vs everyone elses 12 month 12,000 kilometers should have been a hint at the time.
And my eyes are just fine. Definately good enough to tell that the guys that were riding Susies and Yamahas and Hondas had some pretty marginal lighting compared to me - even though we were all using the same bulbs. The laws regarding automotive lighting restrict the maxium wa
ttage, the maximum number of lights that can be run, and beam pattern requirements. There's no restriction on building a more effecient reflector/lens assembly. The only obstacle there is cost and identifying a client base that thinks its worth paying for.