Originally Posted by
Alan K
I am curious about the modern dynamo as to much perceptible drag they cause. I remember the old style dynamos that used to work by spinning against the side of the rear wheel tire. I thought they were awful and removed it off my bicycle within a few weeks. Of course, this was pre- LED era so the bulbs didn’t produce much light for all that drag.
My recollection is that my old bottle dynamo required me to shift down one gear on my Schwinn LeTour or the Raleigh Gran Sport. That was in the days of 5 or 6 speed freewheels, so one gear was significant.
On my Schmidt SON hub dynamo, I've never been able to tell the difference between on and off, even before white LEDs, when I was using an incandescent B&M Lumotec headlight. In fact, that was a bit of a problem if you ran the headlight in the daytime. The bulbs only lasted around 100 hours, and you could burn out the protective zener diode if it had to absorb all of the power from the dynamo.
Steve in Peoria