About a month ago I invested in a set of fake HID's off of ebay, only cost me about $22. Today I started my bike up and i noticed the highbeam light was on with the switch on low beam :dunno: so I switched it to high and then back to low and it went off. Started the bike up and noticed the headlight flickering when the choke was on.....turned choke off and it was fine, so right about now I'm trippin out thinkin my battery terminals could be loose. Checked those and topped up the water in the cells started it back up and everything was fine until I gave it a little rev and it started hardcore flickering at around 4000-6000rpm, Let off the throttle gave it one more hard rev around 8000rpm and what do I hear....the sound of a light bulb bursting. Stuck my head down infront of the headlight and the bulb had bursted inside the headlight assy 2 seconds later got a good whiff of the gas that came out of the bulb and almost passed out. Now I don't have a replacement bulb and and good 2 hours of dissasembling the fairing to take out the headlight assy.
Thats my story about buying "HID's" off of eBay for $20.
I am sure you had bought "HID" lookalikes. The bulbs you bought were for sure just xenon gas filled halogen bulbs. Real single HID kits for motorcycle cost around 180$. They arent halengen bulbs that just plug in to the factory harness. There is a ballast and a igniter which must be connected. Its a Arc lamp, exactly the same kind of bulbs that are in your lampost on your city streets.
If you want good bulbs go with any APC H4 bulb. I use them in my car also and they last forever. In 4 years i've changed 1 bulb in my car and never on the bike.
The most common cause for the bulb bursting would be that someone touched the glass with their skin leaving behind an oil film that concentrates heat - shattering the outer envelope. The bulps are filled with an inert gas - that means no smell from the gas - what you smelled was probably the burned filiment
Sylvania Silverstars are the best "Hyper White" bulbs you can buy. they have a longer life than even regular halogens and look very nice, not crazy blue but they are white with a much brighter(in terms of Lumens) beam. Go with them, you'll be glad you spent the extra $5-10.