I have one of those Shimano hubs that I use on my commuter bike and for "low priority" brevets where I don't care about the extra weight of its heavy-duty Salsa Delgado rim. I really can't tell any difference in rolling resistance between the Shimano hub and the Schmidt hub that I save for "high priority" brevets. But I sure can tell the difference between the Delgado and an Open Pro :-) Velo Orange has decent-priced, Shimano-dynamo-based wheels, though you could potentially save a bit by DIY. Last time I looked, about $170.

I use a Cyo for the front light, since it is only $100. The optics are the same as in the Edeluxe, so they are the best optics available for road use, where you want a lot of light focussed properly on the road, and not a lot of spill light to tick off other road riders or fellow randonneurs who don't like getting blinded when they look in their mirrors :-) (For trail use, the symmetric optics in the E3 might be better.) The Cyo's case is not as nice as the Edeluxe. But I figure that in two years something better will be available, and I'll be replacing the Cyo, anyway.

I recently started using a dynamo-powered taillight, the B&M Seculite Plus ($30, see Peter White's website). This is in addition to a battery-operated LED taillight. It's really nice knowing that the dynamo taillight will be there and shining bright, and I don't have to worry that the batteries might have gone dim without me noticing, and I also don't have to worry that I'll forget to turn it on.

So now we're down to $300 for a pretty-high-quality dynamo-based system, front and rear.

I use a helmet-mounted 1-watt Luxeon LED NiteHawk lamp that is nearly as bright as the Cyo and has the advantage that you can direct it to help see where the road is going in turns. It's also my backup in case the generator or wiring fail. I tend to leave it switched off except on twisty descents or on roads with a lot of traffic where it can sometimes be helpful to "flash" cars that fail to switch off their brights Why does shining your light at them suddenly make them dim their lights, are they stupid, or what?

Nick