Originally Posted by
unterhausen
There are very few battery lights that have a beam that's as good as many dyno lights though. So much of the power is wasted.
Even though this is oft repeated it isn’t any more correct with each repetition. Those of us who use conical beams can see where our light is going and it’s not “wasted”.
Originally Posted by
polyphrast
So true. 200 well placed lumens on the road beat any 500 lm conical beam shape... Albeit there is some rare, reasonable priced chinese stuff with a useful reflector (i.e. at the moment Lumintop B01). All other high powered lamps which don't waste light in the tree tops are (very) expensive (Outbound Road, B&M Ixon Space, Lupine SL(F) and SL-X, Supernova M99 series)
Again, just because something is often repeated doesn’t mean that it is true. My lights don’t “waste light in the tree tops”. It’s optically impossible to do so. My lights are aimed at about 2 car lengths in front of me. Let’s say 30 feet. Let’s assume that the “tree tops” are 40 feet tall. For my conical lights to be “wasted in the tree tops”, the angle of the cone needed to put light 40 feet up from 30 feet away would have to be 200°. Most of the reflectors on conical beams are wider than I really like but they are closer to 35° and no where near 200°.
To put it another way, to put light into the “tree tops” with a 35° reflector would have to be 200 feet away from that tree. Light that far away would be mostly useless, of course, and most people aren’t going to aim their lights like that.
Originally Posted by
unterhausen
I have a dynohub on all of my bikes. It was a great addition to my riding, i don't have to worry about getting home before dark or charging lights. I always had a bike with a dyno back in the '70s and '80s. One of the Soubetez with a built in headlight. They weren't as expensive as batteries back then, this was before the advent of affordable rechargeable batteries
Originally Posted by
wsgts
It does seem from everyone's responses that I'm certainly not abnormal, I do have dynamos for lighting on 4 out of 5 bikes and USB charging on 2 out of the 4 (multi-day longer distance rigs). Just shocking that some people had no idea that good dynamo's and LED lighting can be had for a reasonable rate, although to several people's point building up a wheel can sometimes be expensive, but worth it IMHO.
And therein lies the issue many people have with dynamos. I have 8 bikes. I regularly ride 5 of them at night. I suppose I could swap wheels but there are two different wheel sizes and two different brake configurations as well as several different tire configurations. I can spend $60 to $100 for 3 battery lights and just switch them from bike to bike or I can spend $60 to $300 for wheels, wiring and lights for 5 different bikes. For dynamos, that would translate into $300 to $1500 to do the job.
...and I get a single light per bicycle. With batteries, I have 3 lights with which to see the road and be seen for about 1/15 the cost.
That’s the reason that people have embraced batteries over dynamos. Less cost, more flexibility and more light.