Originally Posted by
PaulRivers
I think the best dynamo rear light is the B&M Topline Plus:
https://www.harriscyclery.net/produc...light-3133.htm
It puts out a red straight line behind you, rather than just a red dot like most lights do. When I'm a driver it's the most visible non-blinking light I've seen. I really like a dynamo rear light because it turns on automatically when the front light turns on, and you don't have to worry about the battery running out (a bigger issue because it's behind you and you can't see it).
Here's a listing of some other dynamo rear lights though like I said I think the topline is the best:
https://www.harriscyclery.net/produc...aillight-1520/
For the front light, I personally would have gone at least for the IQ-XS (70 lux):
https://www.harriscyclery.net/produc...iq-xs-5790.htm
They also make a brighter one the IQ-X (100lux):
https://www.harriscyclery.net/produc...-iq-x-5291.htm
The Lumotec Eyc at 50lux seems a bit weak in my experience, though how much light a person feels they need varies from person to person. It just seems kinda silly to spend $150-$250 on a wheel+dymamo, then go with a cheaper light.
I'm sick of being blinded by everyone else's miniature suns they've mounted on their bikes. I run a helmet light too to help with spotting potholes, and this is my commuter bike, where other than a couple of short sections on good paths, I've got the city's lights to help for almost all of it. In short, I'm not worried about the front light being underpowered, but definitely want to avoid an overpowered one. It's not about saving a couple of bucks on the light.
Interestingly, some of Spanniga's lights feature "Light Line Technology" which sounds similar to what the Topline does.
Originally Posted by
PaulRivers
I personally just paid the bike shop to do it, I don't know what your time/money ratio is, but I know that bike shops are always much better at wiring stuff onto my bike than I am.
Despite being pretty poor, I often go out of the way to spend $ at my LBS, because I'm lucky enough to have a great one, and want them to survive, but in this case I'd like to learn this skill. Also, I'm never quite happy with how even the very best shops end up doing some of the smaller things, so knowing me, I'd probably end up rewiring it just to get it looking cleaner or tidier to my mind. As it is, I've paid my LBS to build up this wheel and will for the others, so he's getting a good chunk of the action anyway.
Originally Posted by
PaulRivers
My experience with a single hub is it's the light itself that determines how well it works at lower speeds, not the hub. Admittedly I haven't used other hubs but I have switched lights. My B&M Cyo worked perfectly fine at walking speeds (less light output obviously but you're going slower so you need less) whereas my Schmidt Edelux (an expensive and supposedly high end light) worked pretty poorly at walking speeds with a lot more flickering and such.
There's a few things with using a dynamo with single track:
- Most dynamo lights are "shaped" beams like a car's low beam where it doesn't put any light "up". This may not work well for mountain biking though you can buy "round" dynamo lights as well, Supernova sells at least one.
- They can provide sufficient light for biking by yourself, but once you're biking with others it can become a lights arms race where you have trouble seeing with your light because the guy behind you has a much brighter light, and your eyes adjust to the light output of his light.
I've always been curious to try a dynamo light for mountain biking but have never quite gotten around to doing it.
I should've been clearer. I'm not anticipating actually mountain biking at night with either of these rigs, but expect that I will end up taking at least one of them on some mild singletrack at some point, and was just wondering if there's any particular tricks to routing the wiring to keep from getting snagged by a branch or something. Like, does anyone ever wrap the fork leg where the wire is running up in bar tape or rubber?
If I ever manage to get back into shape for mountain biking, I'll probably get around to getting set up to do it in the dark, because it's dark a lot up here, but my impression is that is a whole different realm of lights other than dyno lights, and given that it's going to take at least a couple of years for me to get to that point, technology will probably have changed by that point, so I'm not worried about researching that right now.
There was an article online somewhere comparing different dyno hubs I was reading not long ago that stated that one of them (the Shutter Precision? It wasn't any of the Shimano hubs) performed better at very low speeds. Given how slow I travel when loaded down with my camping gear and climbing through hilly/mountainous terrain, it seemed like that smart move to go this route. IIRC, several of the hubs basically stopped working below the speed that I find myself traveling for decent stretches at a time.
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