True story. Being rear ended is very en-light-ening.

[Martz]

Guys. A potentially rather nasty experience t'other day when I was out riding with my nephew. We had pulled into a garage to fuel up and were waiting for a gap in the traffic to pull out onto the road. My concentration was somewhat rudely interrupted by a particularly myopic gentleman in a sodding great camper shunting my bike forward a foot or so. A fairly gentle shove it has to be said, but that was mainly due to the fact that I was on the XR1200 and not the Fat Bob. The XR has a very sturdy plastic tail tidy which cushioned the impact but sadly left a nasty scar in the gents paintwork and my brakes were not applied. No damage was done to my bike so words of advice were given to the gentleman and we carried on our way.
However.... It has got me thinking about the Fat Bob's rear light which is (a) side mounted and (b) barely visible when illuminated., basically it's

I fully intended to replace it with something more conventional anyway, but whatever I replace it with needs to be bright enough to be noticed, and of course I need something to mount a number plate on. So I'm looking for recommendations with the following criteria, bearing in mind I have a bobber-esque rear mudguard. LED, not too small and good looking. I've been eyeing up some of the Alchemy products which by all accounts are well made. Has anyone fitted one and can recommend them? It's an old photo and I no longer have the rack fitted, so a top mount plate isn't out of the question.
TIA.
Martz.

 

[Army]

What about running your indicators as additional running lights or brake lights

 

[watchman]

Or what about going back to the stock fat-bob bobbed fender and fitting harleys tribar led taillight ? The one before it started to look like a robot from behind i found it well bright on my 09 model

 

[watchman]

Like the bottom set up here…

 

[Martz]

Or what about going back to the stock fat-bob bobbed fender and fitting harleys tribar led taillight ? The one before it started to look like a robot from behind i found it well bright on my 09 model

That would be an easy solution, but I'm not a fan of the original Fat Bob rear end.

 

[Martz]

What about running your indicators as additional running lights or brake lights

That is an option. It would mean replacing the front indicators as well, while that's not the end of the world, I've only just replaced them with some indicators that weren't butchered. But definitely worth consideration.

 

[Army]

That is an option. It would mean replacing the front indicators as well, while that's not the end of the world, I've only just replaced them with some indicators that weren't butchered. But definitely worth consideration.

The front indicators are the same single filament bulbs so they dont need changing the rear indicators would require double filament bulbs, I would change the lenses to the blacked out type they look cool

 

[Martz]

The front indicators are the same single filament bulbs so they dont need changing the rear indicators would require double filament bulbs, I would change the lenses to the blacked out type they look cool

I'll look into that.

 

[TimH]

Ive been rear shunted 3 times over the years. Twice at roundabouts ( "I thought you had gone") , once waiting to turn right ( 93 year old medically blind). More lighting may have helped but Im not convinced, luck of the draw rather. Cant hurt to try I suppose

 

[snowflake]

I have quite a bit of previous on this lighting conundrum, and can confirm, that if the bulbs are the same filament type you should not have to change the front set.
If you start going LED, then that's a different issue altogether.....

(I have boxes full of bulbs various in my quest to get it right!! )

 

[kevscrivener]

Just an observation. I've long had reservations about the recent trend towards the achingly hip pseudo-chop side-mounted light/number plate set-up so common these days amongst those who seek to be different by copying everyone else; and this may be another reason why.

For over a hundred years, motorists have been used to seeing a motorcycle's stop lamp shine at them from a central point on the bike pretty much above the bonnet line of most vehicles. Shift it out of the way lower and to one side (particularly the left where a lean angle lowers it even further) and they don't see it where their mind expects it to be. At close quarters this effect is exacerbated; result, brain is tricked into thinking bike has not stopped, driver proceeds, collision results. Seen it more than once and I bet there have been hundreds of times more near misses.

Similar for indicators mounted too close together.

 

[watchman]

On a 60 plate it should not be too much of an issue harleys tribar led set up plugged in with no probs and did not affect anything else on my 09 fatbob i believe its only when everything went canbus it got complicated although had had to fit an equaliser to a bike i did as the leds did not draw enough current to make the flasher relay work

 

[Martz]

Just an observation. I've long had reservations about the recent trend towards the achingly hip pseudo-chop side-mounted light/number plate set-up so common these days amongst those who seek to be different by copying everyone else; and this may be another reason why.

For over a hundred years, motorists have been used to seeing a motorcycle's stop lamp shine at them from a central point on the bike pretty much above the bonnet line of most vehicles. Shift it out of the way lower and to one side (particularly the left where a lean angle lowers it even further) and they don't see it where their mind expects it to be. At close quarters this effect is exacerbated; result, brain is tricked into thinking bike has not stopped, driver proceeds, collision results. Seen it more than once and I bet there have been hundreds of times more near misses.

Similar for indicators mounted too close together.

Yep, I'm with you on that. It obviously wasn't a deal breaker when I bought the bike, but it was one of the first things on my to do list. And this episode just reinforced the notion that I should crack on with getting it all sorted.