Originally Posted by
trackhub
Excellent set of photographs, loved 'em! The only thing I would disagree with, are those generator powered lights. It's true, if you are under 35 years of age, you have probably never seen these. I remember them, not in a good way. They add a lot of drag, and give very little light for the effort.
I think you'd be surprised to try a new bottle generator driven light or a proper hub dyno setup. Some of the Dutch bikes have internal dynamos and either front LED or halogen lights. The new lights throw out plenty of light for urban riding, and if you want to do all night randonneuring events they will work well for that purpose too. (I have a SON hub and dual Schmidt lights and can ride all night, every night - the only maintanence I need to do is swap the bulbs (I'm running halogens). With and LED you wouldn't have to worry about that...)
True, the bottle dyno's add drag - but for the convenience of never worrying about batteries or charging, I'd say its worth it. If you were doing 10-20-30 mile rides at night I'd suggest making sure the bike has a hub dynamo... silent and more efficient.