Racing a motorcycle at night is just crazy for most people. The ADVMoto testing crew must be crazy then, because that’s what we did to test out Trail Tech’s 35mm dual light helmet kit at the famed Perry Mountain 24 Hour Challenge in Maplesville, Alabama.  If you have ever thought about doing a 24 hour race or ride a lot at night, getting some lamps on your helmet is something to consider.

Having never raced at night, let’s just say my nerves were a little frazzled. The team decided it would be good to have helmet lamps to help shed more light on the course. Little did we know, it would end up being our main light source since our bike’s primary HID headlamp would randomly turn on and off thanks to a mystery loose connection. The Trail Tech LED’s kept us from total darkness.

Enough about the race. Let’s talk about the details on these little rays of sunshine. Our kit included two black billet aluminum LED lamps wired with a lighted on/off switch, a Li-Ion battery and charger.  Two mounting options were included in the kit for two handle bar mounts and four adhesive flat-surface mounts good for helmets.

Each lamp unit only weighs 5.9oz each, so the added weight is barely noticeable if placed correctly. Each light has three output settings, High (12W) Medium (6W) and Low (3W). For our test we only used the 12W setting, which Trail Tech claims will run both lights for three hours on the supplied battery. We were only able to get about 2.5 hours out of the battery pack before they turned off. Light output is impressive and very usable at 800 lumens per light, with a light color of 6300 kelvin, a blueish white.

Installing the lights on the helmet is fairly easy to do with the included 3M adhesive flat mounts. Unfortunately they aren’t adjustable so I recommend doing this at night so you can aim the beam. I opted to mount the lights on each side of the chin bar, as this seemed to cast the beam in a wider area to light up corners better. The cool thing about helmet lights is that they point where you are looking, not where your bike is pointed. This proved to be a huge help when trying to carve up corners in total darkness.

Although everything worked great for most of the 24-hour event, we did encounter some issues. One set of the lights wiring harness started acting funny, and would intermittently turn the right lamp on and off. I believe this was due to a weak section of the wire at the Y-joint. Also, when plugging into the battery pack, make sure to push hard until you feel the plug slide into the locking groove.

It’s tough for any product to stand up to the grueling conditions of a 24-hour event and come out still working. Had it not been for the Trail Tech LED helmet lights, our team would have been left in the dark or worse. If you ever plan to do any type of night riding, a set of Trail Tech LED helmet Lights would come in handy. MSRP: $399.95 TrailTech.net