Simon’s cycle marshal 650 Versys

Simon is a cycle race marshal, and he uses this mildly adapted Kawasaki for the job. This means flashing orange lights, and he’d got fed up with lash-up solutions. He brought along a new set of LEDs, and asked if they could be fitted securely to the bike, and wired up in a weatherproof fashion.

Step 1 was to send the bike next door to Scott Campbell, who made some aluminium brackets to fix the LEDs to. They had to avoid the existing spotlights on the front, and fit onto the rear grab rail at the back. Painted satin black, they look like a production item.

The Versys bodywork is tricky to remove, but on the right side are two spare plugs: one’s an earth; the other is a switched accessory feed. They made adding an extra circuit a lot easier. At the back of the bike, the plugs for the LEDs are well protected under the seat. At the front they are out in the weather, so we went for water-resistant Superseal plugs. Superseals are tricky to make up in my experience, but if you take lots of care they can work perfectly.

Simon had bought a neat illuminated switch to turn the lights on and off, but unfortunately the illuminated function didn’t work. Instead, we added a separate LED warning light in the dash, so he knows when the orange marshalling lights are flashing.