Installing Motolights on a BMW GS — Gino The Flash Does It in 2 Hours 21 Minutes

There are dozens of Motolights installation videos out there, and most of them share one theme: this job takes time. Tank panels off, fairings off, wiring routed properly — on a 1250 GSA it's an afternoon, minimum. So consider this episode my contribution to science: the world's fastest Motolights installation, performed by a man I can only describe as the Flash of the motorcycle world. If there were ever a Justice League for bikes, Gino has the costume.

How I Found a Superhero in a Basement

The backstory matters, because it says everything about this riding community. I posted a simple question in the Bad Monkeys motorcycle club group: where can I get my new driving lights installed? And Gino — not a professional mechanic, just a fellow biker who happens to own about ten bikes and the skills to maintain all of them — replied offering to do it himself. In his own basement parking. At no cost. That's how I ended up spending a day watching a master at work, and that's why I keep telling new riders that joining a UAE club is the single best upgrade you can make to your bike.

The Speed Run

I started a timer mostly as a joke. Within 30 minutes — thirty! — Gino had removed practically everything that takes an old-timer workshop an hour. Panels, trim, the lot, laid out in tidy rows like surgical instruments. No shortcuts, no zip-tie-it-behind-the-fairing workarounds: he stripped the bike properly so the wiring could be routed the way the factory would do it. Old lights out, Motolights mounted, every connector seated, every cable hidden.

Full teardown, clean wiring, complete reassembly: 2 hours and 21 minutes. By a man whose actual profession is not mechanic. If you've done it faster, the comments section awaits your evidence.

Final time from start to finish — disassembly, installation, full reassembly — was 2 hours 21 minutes, and Gino seemed mildly annoyed it wasn't under two. The result is indistinguishable from a dealership job, except the dealership doesn't hand you karak and bike stories while they work.

Why Motolights, and Lessons for Your Own Install

The lights themselves are about one thing: being seen. Auxiliary driving lights down on the fork legs form a visual triangle with the headlight that makes a bike dramatically more noticeable to drivers — and on UAE highways, where lane discipline is a philosophical concept, conspicuity is cheap insurance. A few takeaways if you're attempting this yourself: budget a full afternoon if you're not Gino, photograph every connector before unplugging it, do the full teardown rather than fishing cables blind, and test the lights before the last panel goes back on — rework is where afternoons go to die.

Thank you, Gino, and thank you, Bad Monkeys, for proving once again that the best accessory in motorcycling is the people. For more farkle adventures on Manchalee — including the ones that went much, much worse — the gear reviews page has the full catalogue.

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