Originally Posted by
PlanoFuji
Myself and many others have noticed diminished capacity that we deem significant. Further, a battery’s capacity decreases with age as well, they need to be treated as consumables (and hazardous waste ones at that). The point is that one needs to have sufficient battery capacity for the length of time one might ride (the max not the average), which needs to account for potential reductions in battery capacity during extreme weather and battery age. Nothing is worse then running out of light when you need it--something that is far more likely with a battery light as opposed to a dynamo light.
I'm not sure what you consider 'significant'. My run times seldom vary much from the 3 hours that I get out of a 2S2P 18650 Li-ion battery in all kinds of temperature ranges. If I need more time, I carry spare batteries. It's pretty simple.
Yes, batteries are a consumable and they need to be disposed of properly. However, they can be recycled to keep them out of the waste stream. Li chemistry batteries are, comparatively speaking, of a lower toxicity than cadmium chemistry batteries.
Originally Posted by
PlanoFuji
Yep, cheap Chinese lights can be had for much cheaper than the range I mentioned...
I don't consider dyno lights to be particularly expensive (especially considering that many spend in the range I mentioned for battery lights), nor do I think having one for each bike to be particularly troublesome. I have four bikes and three dyno setups. The only reason the fourth doesn't is because it is only used in good weather during the day. IMO, nothing makes a bike as useful a means of transportation as always having lights ready.
I also always have lights ready. They mount easily onto the bike and are ready to go in a moments notice. I, however, find spending $200+ per bike to be excessive. I think most people, when presented with the cost of $200 per bike vs a little inconvenience for little cost will probably choose the inconvenience over the cost. The fact that bicycle lighting is dominated by battery powered lights, and has been for a long time,
speaks to that fact.
Originally Posted by
Juha
Umm... not necessarily. There's no need to have the light itself fixed permanently. I have dynohubs on several bikes, but a single light with plug-in connectors for wiring and QR mount on the handlebar. The light I have is a Supernova E3, and I certainly could not justify the cost of buying one of those for each bike.
The light is the cheap part of the system. I have 7 different bikes and would need at least 5 different wheels because of the way my bikes are configured if I wanted all of them with lights. I'd need a 26" disc compatible wheel, a 26" nondisc wheel and three 700C wheels. That's a lot of hardware to acquire. I doubt that the 26" disc wheels would be useful as well because it would be going on mountain bikes that are used off-road...not a place where dynamo "shine" all that well.
I also find a helmet light to be highly useful so I'd still need batteries for that. And I like having multiple lamp heads so that I can swap them around in the case of failure or accident. I use 3 lamps currently and have had all three fail (all 3 mounts were broken) in the past due to an accident. One, luckily, didn't fail as badly as the other two and got me home. I have had too many other incidences where some component of the lights have failed to depend on a single light source or even a single power source.