Originally Posted by
Drew Eckhardt
"Pretty much never" isn't never.
I had a dynamo light failure when I neglected to disconnect the cable removing the wheel to free a piece of plant that was rubbing annoyingly on the light and the terminal pulled off. 60 miles from home that would be really bad.
So I have a B&M Ixon IQ Premium with a set of NiMh AA batteries installed but can run off alkaline batteries from any 24 hour grocery/convenience store.
Right, well our conditions are big factors in how important a spare is. As I said earlier, my route is lit along the way, so I can see, though not as well if I don't have a headlight. And since only a small fraction of my route is with motor traffic, it's really not a disaster if I don't have a headlight. Not only that, I don't have any big hills. If I were moving at 30 mph, a very bright headlight would be important, but I'm not. Modern headlights have enabled certain kinds of night riding that weren't possible before. Here in NYC, you didn't see lights on any bikes until recent years. That was never a good idea, but it was how it was. I was among those light-less people, and if I find myself light-less again, I'll survive.
My dynamo powered headlight has truly never failed. Twice my dynamo powered tail light failed, and both times it was because a wire fell out, and that was easy to diagnose and fix.