[Review] The Squadron Pro Adventure Bike Kit by Baja Designs

There are some things you do to your bike that you may regret or feel that you may not use enough to justify the install. The Squadron Pro LED Light Kit WILL NOT be one of those things. In fact, once you have the Squadron Pro’s mounted on your bike, you’ll instantly question how you ever rode at night without them. They literally light up the night.

Getting caught out in the dark is something that we know all too well and, most recently on our trip to Baja we seemed to be doing a little bit more night riding than we had hoped for. It’s honestly scary to think where we would’ve been (or wouldn’t have been?) without Squadron Pro’s mounted to our KTM Adventures.

Growing up in a rural Colorado mountain town at 8,500 feet of elevation, I thought I knew darkness. The Baja desert darkness was unlike any darkness I’d ever experienced. It was probably due to the fact that I felt the vulnerability of being on a motorcycle, maybe it was because I could feel the temperature changes and smell the cowshit—but not see the cows. It was a darkness that sent a chill down my back and widened my blue eyes beyond their natural state.

“Turn on your Baja Designs,” I would hear through my headset. “Oh yeah!” I would exclaim. Suddenly the road ahead turned from total dark to decent daylight and my mind would wander back from being focused on the road to thinking about enjoying an ice cold Fanta on the beach so long as there was a place to stop and grab a Fanta and so long as the guide-book-described campsite was actually on a beach.

The technicalities of the Squadron Pro’s are not only advanced, they are built with high quality materials and made to last through even your longest and hardest adventures. Per light, with 4900 lumens (4 total Cree LEDS) whatever darkness you face, these lights will light your way. With each light, you have a wide driving angle and a spot pattern so you can not only see what is coming up on the side of the road, there is lighting down the trail/road as well.

We also love to ride in the day with our Squadrons on because it adds a greater area to our presence and we feel as though it makes us more visible to other motorists.

A great benefit of the Squadrons, seeing as how they are made for Adventure Bikes, is that they are built with Baja Designs’ MoistureBlock™. This means the lights are waterproof, rainproof, and even submersible (up to 9ft). I’m sure I’m not the only one who has nearly dropped my moto in a creek while crossing…

This wouldn’t be an appropriate review if I didn’t mention something of the install, which is one of many things that thoroughly impressed us about the Squadrons and Baja Designs as a whole. Based on everything else we had received at the time to install on our bikes, we were guessing that installing lights would be one of those projects that should only take an hour but would turn into 4-5 hours. As soon as we laid out the contents of the boxes, we were completely surprised. Not only did the Squadron Pro Kit come with everything you needed to complete the installation, the quality of materials was unbelievable. The wiring harnesses were perfectly made up. The brackets were made for our intended purpose. Everything was pretty self-explanatory and installing the lights on our bikes was one of the easiest projects we had completed before heading to Baja. We were in awe of the quality of materials and the workmanship that went into the build of the kit making it flawless.

The customer service at Baja Designs is another aspect of the product as a whole that we were just blown away by. First of all, when you call, you actually talk to a human that works there and knows exactly what they are talking about. They are genuine, friendly, and so easy to work with whether you have simple (stupid) questions on install or need help figuring out exactly which product you need for your application. For us, we feel like excellent customer service is hard to come by these days so when we do experience it, it is worth talking about.

If you’re looking for a high quality, off-road light for your Adventure Motorcycle or any other mode of transportation, look no further than Baja Designs. Exceptional design meets high quality and will turn your darkness into somewhat daylight. You will not regret adding these lights to your rig!