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I've had a Paper Bike out on loan this week and have been so impressed by the "basic" dynamo light fitted to it that I was pressed to put fingers to keyboard and do a bit of a write-up. Click on the pic:
Hopefully everyone has long-since sorted out lighting for the winter season (!!), but you may be considering (or now consider) an upgrade. If so, the Lumotec Lyt is well worth a bit of thought.
I've a hankering to build* a disc brake dynamo wheel that will normally live on wintersaurus but can be transferred onto the Croix for night Audax.
*by which I mean pay the Bike Works to do it for me, unless I've learned myself by then.
If this is the standard light that comes with the Paper Bike, then cc of this parish will presumably read with interest.
I'll never go back. We have Ay-Up MTB lights which come in over £100 a set and they don't get any use now (although to be fair I did have to build SWMBO a dynamo wheel before she'd consider it - bit of a fait accompli.
I was pleased when she immediately refused to let me borrow the wheel after first using it :P )
Thanks, yes, I'm reading this with interest! The current front light is lovely but I could do with upgrading it to a 'stand licht' version which stays on at traffic lights, as the rear one already does.
Hub dynamo lights are great. I just leave mine switched on permanently; hey presto, effortless running lights.
PS I've discovered that other PB riders give me friendly smiles when we see each other on the street :)
PS I've discovered that other PB riders give me friendly smiles when we see each other on the street :)
Air cooled VWs do that too. It was a bit odd in the 1980s when there were still lots of them around.
Edit and on topic, I'm slowly working on the memsahib to get her used to the idea of fitting another SON on a different Brompton. It's not cheap so it might take a while. This would fall in the category of an upgrade rather than wear and tear. She doesn't mind wear and tear expenditure but new toys are a horse of a different colour.
Good write up Dave. The one thing that put me off the ots dynamo lights was the cost but this is cheap as chips and looks to be easily bright enough for city use.
Is it bright enough for tow path navigation?
I would imagine it would be bright enough. I've used the halogen Lumotec Plus (17 lux) on unlit rural roads and it is plenty bright enough to see where you are going. I'm running a bottle dynamo on the Raleigh and it works fine.
I picked up a Lyt B Plus (15 lux) recently but have't got around to fitting it to anything yet...
I am wondering if their is a light, affordable hub dynamo setup which could go on my roadbike for winter/long audax duty. How much drag do they create?
Not much drag but it varies a bit from one model to another.
I can feel pulsing from the Sturmey Archer at very low speeds but not the SON. I don't have a Shimano generator. It's possible that the SON uses more magnets than the SA. It's also in a smaller wheel.
Some data on the Schmidt here if you scroll down the page.
The graphs in that link suggest the cheapest Shimano hubs take 8W off your effort when going at 18mph or so. I've not done any proper maths(just looked at Strava a bit) and it looks like a reasonably brisk pace on the flat needs ~160W from a standard bike, so about 5% of your effort goes into the hub.
I dunno what 5% of effort feels like, mind.
I don't notice the drag. The SA is on a sit up and beg so I can reach the switch while it's moving. Turning it on doesn't slow me down in any perceptible way. The Schmidt turns itself on and off. I can only tell by seeing the light reflected on cars or looking at the tail light.
Well, bang goes my idea to get a budget dynamo hub wheel built by Spa Cycles for my 'audax' bike. Clearly one needs to save up for the pricier options to reduce drag. I have noticed the dynamo hub on my wee AluBike folder is a bit draggy when it's on, but it's a pootley bike so not really a big problem. I've also noticed it gets slightly draggy sometimes when switched off, the noise is quite noticeable when making a swiftish descent down some long incline.
While I'm salting away the pennies for a fancy schmancy hub, I shall keep using my Nordlicht bottle dynamo, which, while a bit draggy when being used (though MUCH better than the cheaper one I used to use), creates no drag at all when disengaged.
I can just about feel the change (but not the difference) between off and on on my DH-3N72 at very low speed but any increase in effort required on long distances is ignorably negligible.
You don't need the fancy one but it is nice.
I broke the stator on my SON so it had to go back to Germany to get mended. They upgraded a bit inside it too and sent me a special Brompton lamp bracket.
One of the spacers on the axle gets quite corroded and bits flake off. The original one cracked and segments fell out. It still worked.
I have heard that they keep working when submerged in water but I've not done that yet.
Just got sent to the chip shop by the memsahib. Possibly the only person in Airdrie to go there by bike while over 16 yrs old. I didn't have to wait in the car park queue so it might actually have been faster. SA generator, Lumotec halogen front lamp, B&M Senso TopLicht on the back.
Can't say I've noticed any difference between having a light attached and not... Though my hub is so cheap it might create more drag with out a light attached with loses in the windings.
I can't tell whether mine is on or off (either the Sturmey Archer or the Shimano one on SWMBO's bike) which is good enough for me.
Take a look at the second chart in http://www.myra-simon.com/bike/dynotest.html for effective gradients, which I like as a way of conceptualising the drag. 1/500 seems popular (although you can do much better) which is ~10 feet per mile.
@wee folding bike - I have (accidentally) managed to make a submarine out of my SON and can confirm it worked throughout. Only briefly beneath the surface admittedly, but still impressive.
In related news, large puddles may be deeper than they appear.
Which reminds me that I also did the Toplight Line Plus taillight:
In the interests of science, I also videoed my standlights running down. You can get it from my homepage (or some kind person may link - I can't see YouTube from work, even at lunch).
Interesting read. The width is certainly a handy feature
Change of AC frequency indicating braking triggers the extra light, even during the day.
This is genius, wonder how they do it.
"
Ian Walker (@ianwalker)
19/11/2012 13:07
I just backed Sparse Bicycle Lights on @kickstarter
"
Now that is clever...
off to the shed to work out how to bodge a diy rip off.
Good steer Dave, if I was gadget gullible I might have ordered a Toplight back light with the brake feature minutes after reading your review... ahh, damn! I'll try to remember to let everyone know how it goes :-0
Change of AC frequency indicating braking triggers the extra light, even during the day.
But the LDR in my Edelux turns off the back light in day light so how would it know the AC frequency of the hub ?
ooh, was looking at the Edelux earlier, how do you find yours wfb?
It has an exaggerated idea of what is darkness. It'might not be helped by the Brompton having if below the bag so the LDR doesn't get much light.
I got it not long after they came out and it has worked just fine. There might be better lights available now. The Edelux has been around for at least a couple of years.
Here's Dave's video of the standlights running down:
Don't tell me you're not all riveted...
I'm quite pleased with my innovation of the handlebar light switch combined with standlights. I'm now switching my lights off at the dock end of the path and only turning them on again at Canonmills Tesco (although I suppose flicking them on momentarily for the two or three street lights that are out will top them up a little).
The rear is still fine after that distance, although the front gets to the point where you wouldn't want to use it as sole illumination fairly quickly.
This means I can run the horizontal cut-off beam at the correct adjustment rather than feeling I ought to point it at my front axle.
Thanks for the tip of a cheep second dynamo light. I have the Schimano 3N80 with disk so I can swap between the cx for winter commuting and my Dawes tourer. Swapping the light is a faf and having a cheeper extra light would be good to save me moving my light over (if it wasn't for the fact I have cx snow tyres on the cx now)...
I bough everything from Rose cycles and saved on buying in the UK even adding postage of around a fiver!
I was just looking at Dutch Bike Bits for a Lumotec Lyt front standlight, inspired by Dave's blog above, when I noticed an article on the Dutch Bike Bits blog all about lights. David Hembrow reckons that Busch & Muller lights, although "a revelation" a few years ago, have now been comprehensively bettered by Philips "Safe Ride" lights. Here's the blog entry: Top quality bicycle lights for roads and cycle-paths. I'm now back in my usual state of chronic indecision.
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