My rear facing lights I guess could be flipped to point forward but wouldn't do much good from back there. The lights I have on the front will be finding a new home on the rear sides of the basket to really light up behind the XK. I've found rear lights much more usefull then front facing lights in many situations. Don, has a cross bar he's holding for me so I'll make a forwad removeable front light bar out of that. Here in NC you can have lights in any direction without covers on them, not sure how many if any you can use on the streets though. I would recomend the first lights you install be rear facing IMO because they will serve you the most our head lights are pretty darn bright and do a good job lighting up the trail in most cases.