Why not generator lights?

Matt O'Toole said:

Super Slinky said:

Tim McNamara says...

Quoted message said:

Malarkey. This is simply a perpetuation of the myth that a "good"
headlight is one that replicates full sun lighting conditions. This
actually makes it harder to see well at night by interfering with
dark adaptation of the retina. Close objects are overly bright with
these lights and dazzle the eye, much like looking into the
headlights of an oncoming car. I see better with my Schmidt hub
with a 3W Lumotec Oval lamp than I have ever seen with any of my
high-powered battery lights. Even descending at 40 mph on curvy
roads is fine.

40 MPH? Come on. I live in some of the hilliest country imagineable,
with >10% grades all over the place. Rarely do I see 40 MPH.

Really? What sort of bike is this on? I've gone over 55 MPH coasting down
such grades in Vancouver, and get up to 45 MPH fairly regularly. Perhaps
your hills aren't long enough?

--
Benjamin Lewis

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
-- James Thurber

Tim McNamara said:

[email hidden] writes: <snip>
"Far, far superior" is only an opinion, not a fact. I've got both of
the lights whereof you speak, and since getting the Schmidt and
Lumotec I haven't used the NiteRider except as a flashlight around

the

Quoted message said:

house. IMHO the Schmidt is superior in both lighting and

convenience.

Quoted message said:

But how can this be, you ask, since more is better and 15 watts is
obviously superior to 3 watts? Is there really no comparison? Let's
put that assumption to the test, shall we?

Let's put some of your assumptions to the test shall we?

Quoted message said:

First, let's start with convenience. To use the NiteRider, I have to
plan ahead to make sure the battery is charged up. I can't just go
out for a night ride on a whim. To use the Schmidt, all I have to do
is pedal the bike and flip a switch. It's 8:40 at night as I type
this and I could go on a ride with my Schmidt in 15 minutes. I'd

need

Quoted message said:

a lead time of four hours or more to go on a ride with the NiteRider-
so I could leave after midnight.

Convenience: Batteries always ready to go. I have mutliple sets
cobbled together from various sources. Charged, checked and exercised
monthly. I can still be out the door in 15 minutes. Plus, if I want
to go for a road ride, I can swap lights to the bike easily or if I
want to ride a mountain bike I can change to that bike or any of the
others in my fleet. Can't do that with a hub dynamo or easily with any
other style.

Quoted message said:

Second, to use the NiteRider, I have to plan the distance of my ride
based on my estimate of the available battery life- which changes

with

Quoted message said:

the temperature, how long it's been charging, etc. I have to leave a
margin of safety for flat tires or just guessing wrong about battery
life. With the Schmidt, I can ride whatever length of time I feel
like.

Distance: Because I use my lights for transportation, I know how long
I'm going to be out. If I want to be out longer or go for a
recreational ride, I carry more batteries and I carry more then one
light so that if I want I can extend the ride by using only one at a
time.

Quoted message said:

Third, the lamp for my NiteRider is (naturally) mounted on my helmet,
which puts the source of illumination above my eyes. This results in
decreased depth perception through washing out the information needed
about the road surface. The pool of light is shorter, since it had

to

Quoted message said:

be pointed down at a sharper angle in order to see the road in front
of the wheel, which leaves the road ahead unlit. There is an
advantage in that the beam is pointed with head movement, so the

light

Quoted message said:

tends to fall on whatever I am looking at- but if I am looking away
from the road, I lose peripheral vision that might reveal something

in

Quoted message said:

the road that I might hit. The lamp for my Schmidt is mounted at the
fork crown, giving a much longer pool of light that illuminates both
the riad right in front of my wheel as well as a block ahead. Since
the road is always illuminated, I have the advantage of being able to
see something in the road with peripheral vision if I am looking

away.

I ride with a 15 watt NiteRider on my helmet all the time. If I lose
the battery on that one I will transfer a handlebar lamps battery to
helmet because I find it far more useful than the handlebar mount. I
have never experienced any problems with depth perception from a helmet
mounted lamp even when riding singletrack trails with lots of rocks.
In fact, the higher mount makes for shorter shadows and I can pick out
details better.

With lights mounted on the handlebar and a helmet mounted light, I
adjust the helmet light to shine in front of the handlebar light so I
don't have any sort of problem with a sharp beam angle. No problems
with peripheral vision either since the light goes where my head goes
and will illuminate anything I want to look at.

Quoted message said:

Fourth, the NiteRider is so bright that it interferes with dark
adaptation by over-lighting close or reflective objects. This
actually makes it harder to see while riding at night, not better.

My

Quoted message said:

Schmidt/Lumotec, providing less intense light but better coverage,
lets my eyes get dark adapted, so that 40 mph descents on unfamiliar
roads feel fine. People with normal night vision can see with these
lights just fine.

Quoted message said:

Fifth, the highly focused beam of the NiteRider doesn't illuminate
street signs unless I point the light at them (resulting in dazzling
brightness that makes it hard to see well for the next couple of
minutes). The Schmidt/Lumotec provides a wide enough beam to allow

me

Quoted message said:

to at least see street signs and usually to read them; since these
often contain moderately helpful information, IMHO this is good.

Now this just doesn't make sense. How can the light interfere with
dark adaptation by over lighting close objects AND not illuminate? I
can illuminate a street sign from blocks away if needed and have done
it often. Never had any problem with being blinded by flashing my
light on a reflective sign either, even when riding along a dark creek
park where they have lots of them to warn rafters of up coming hazards.
(Are they reflective for those roving bands of night time watersports
enthusiasts?)

Quoted message said:

Sixth, I don't like the feeling of the battery cable running up the
back of my neck and the extra weight of the light on my helmet. For
that matter, I don't always wear a helmet to attach the NiteRider to.

Personal preference.

Quoted message said:

So, the Schmidt/Lumotec may not be the best choice for you for your
own reasons (e.g., off-road riding at slow speeds is not a situation
where the Schmidt works well). That's fine. But this malarkey that
the NiteRider is "far, far superior" is hogwash. It does put out

more

Quoted message said:

light, but it is less useful than the Schmidt.

You might want to add "for me" to that last statement. For Russell
(and myself) the battery lights are "far, far superior" to dyanamos.
I've tried them and not found them to be that useful. Bottle ones
don't work on the steep sideways of mountain bike tires (tend to creep
into the wheels). They don't work off-road. I have multiple bikes
that I use and I might want to ride a mountain bike one day, a road
bike the next or a fixed gear the next, so rather then having multiple
dynamos, one set of lights (actually 3 lamps and several
batteries)works out better for me and, perhaps, others.

So let's be careful with throwing around the "hogwash" comments, shall
we?

Stuart Black

Quoted message said:

In the USA peter White Cycles sells the Schmidt generator lights. $200
for the hub alone. $300 for a built wheel. Lights are about $40 each
for Busch-Lumotec and $90 each for Schmidt. 3 Watts each. Up to two
lights can be powered by the Schmidt. So you are looking at $340,
$380, $390, or $480 for 3 Watts or 6 Watts of Schmidt generator light
in the USA.

Most mail order places sell the NiteRider 10 Watt HeadTrip NiMH battery
powered light for $120. Before sales codes for 10% or 20% off at
Performance or Nashbar. I have this unit, as well as several other
NiteRider units. It runs for a bit over 2 hours. 10 Watts is more
light than 3 Watts or 6 Watts. NiteRider also sells similar setups
that mount to the handlebars for a similar price.

Its a lot cheaper to get a very good battery powered unit than a good
quality generator light setup.

We've seen this distortion of pricing comparisons before.

What you're doing is like saying "A Ferrari costs over $100,000 and a
Volkswagen costs $20,000, so German cars are a lot cheaper than Italian
cars." It makes sense only to someone who is ignorant of Mercedes and Fiat.

The Schmidt is widely acknowledged as the "best in the world" generator.
If it's too expensive for you, you can get a Shimano hub generator for
perhaps $60. You can get other recognized name brand generators for
prices down to $35 or so, and you can find a few cheap ones for less
than $20. And BTW, the differences are not in light output, so much as
in efficiency and perhaps longevity.

I'm using mostly Soubitez bottom bracket generators. I bought one brand
new so long ago that I don't recall the price, but I think it was about
$20 back in the 1980s. I bought a new-old-stock one about 8 years ago
for less than $20, and I had one given to me by a friend. All work
perfectly, and all give sufficient light for my commuting, touring and
recreational rides.

--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

Quoted message said:

Tim McNamara said:

the road that I might hit. The lamp for my Schmidt is mounted at the
fork crown, giving a much longer pool of light that illuminates both
the riad right in front of my wheel as well as a block ahead. Since
the road is always illuminated, I have the advantage of being able to
see something in the road with peripheral vision if I am looking
away.

I ride with a 15 watt NiteRider on my helmet all the time. If I lose
the battery on that one I will transfer a handlebar lamps battery to
helmet because I find it far more useful than the handlebar mount. I
have never experienced any problems with depth perception from a helmet
mounted lamp even when riding singletrack trails with lots of rocks.
In fact, the higher mount makes for shorter shadows and I can pick out
details better.

I think most people here have already agreed that a higher mounted battery
light is preferable in this application, and are arguing that the blanket
statement "brighter is better, period" is false.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
-- James Thurber

M. Chandler said:

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub generators,
but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless someone knows
otherwise).

They are if you ride slowly ;-)

Frank Krygowski said:

The Schmidt is widely acknowledged as the "best in the world" generator.
If it's too expensive for you, you can get a Shimano hub generator for
perhaps $60. You can get other recognized name brand generators for
prices down to $35 or so, and you can find a few cheap ones for less
than $20. And BTW, the differences are not in light output, so much as
in efficiency and perhaps longevity.

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub generators,
but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless someone knows otherwise).

--
Mark Chandler
Superior, CO
http://www.MileHighSkates.com

" The secondary effect is that when stopped, there is no light.

IMO not much of an issue, but recent headlights feature an LED
powered by a goldcap or similar.

It might take some time until recent technology catches on, if it
does at all in the US where the bicycle market is mostly sports
driven."

There lies the problem "recent headlights" have LED capacitors. I
started with bottle generators over 20 years ago but quickly found them
to be unusable. The reasons were numerous: poor light output,
wouldn't work with mountain bike tires, multiple bikes, etc. So I
started with experimenting with other lighting options. I've used 6 W
camping laterns (drycell batteries), Union lamps with incandescent
bulbs and then halogen bulbs and then overvolted halogen bulbs (melted
lamp holder). Turbo Cat came out with a system to jazz up a Cateye
HL5000 lamp and, being a cheapskate and a clever guy, I figured out how
to do what they were doing with RC car batteries and higher voltage
bulbs. From there it's just a short step to the higher zoot light
systems.

After all that time and effort in working out a battery system that
gives ME more of the light that I want, it would be really hard to
abandon it for something that, in MY opinion, isn't as good. That
said, I will say that I wouldn't buy an HID system at the current
price. Damn, who wants to spend the equivalent of a new bike on a
light system!? (At least all at once.)

Stuart Black

davidd86 said:

Also (while I'm sure many folks will quickly write this off as
irrelevant and/or the rantings of a zealot), the zen of the thing is
sooo much better with a generator! You're using your legs. That's how
it should be. They didn't burn coal a couple of hours ago at the
generating plant to make power that you now store in a rechargeable
battery. I mean artificially-powered _anything_, you could argue, is
outta place on a bike. If you're gonna use a NightRider setup, why not
power a small electric motor with the battery, etc. etc. All I'm sayin'
is it sure ain't so pure with a battery.

Some of the Li-ion batteries for HID lamps have sufficient capacity [1]
to get me and the bike to work and back, were they wired to an
electric motor. That's when things have really gone too far.

[1] 35W for 3 hours = 160W for the 40 minute round trip. A nice
cruising power.

M. Chandler said:

Frank Krygowski said:

The Schmidt is widely acknowledged as the "best in the world" generator.
If it's too expensive for you, you can get a Shimano hub generator for
perhaps $60. You can get other recognized name brand generators for
prices down to $35 or so, and you can find a few cheap ones for less
than $20. And BTW, the differences are not in light output, so much as
in efficiency and perhaps longevity.

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub generators,
but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless someone knows
otherwise).

I would expect they would work even better at lower speeds, since the wheel
is spinning faster. Or did you mean there is some reason you can't lace
them?

--
Benjamin Lewis

Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing.
-- James Thurber

David Damerell said:

Tim McNamara said:

David Damerell said:

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>OTOH, LED taillights are markedly superior to incandecent ones
>that are usually used with generators. I use these without a
>second thought.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Why not use one of the wide selection of standlight-equipped LED
rear lights for use with dynamos?

Quoted message said:

Don't want wires all over the place.

Fair enough; but that's completely different from what you first
said, that they are superior to dynamo rear lights.

I was inadequately specific, thinking incandescent tail lights as I
was typing. LEDs are superior (IMHO, YMMV, etc) to incandenscent tail
lights. The power source is not relevant. last time I checked,
British law required incandescent and not LED tail lights- did that
law get updated yet? Laws always lag behind technology.

Super Slinky said:

Tim McNamara says...

Quoted message said:

Malarkey. This is simply a perpetuation of the myth that a "good"
headlight is one that replicates full sun lighting conditions.
This actually makes it harder to see well at night by interfering
with dark adaptation of the retina. Close objects are overly
bright with these lights and dazzle the eye, much like looking into
the headlights of an oncoming car. I see better with my Schmidt
hub with a 3W Lumotec Oval lamp than I have ever seen with any of
my high-powered battery lights. Even descending at 40 mph on curvy
roads is fine.

There's been many threads on this topic already.

Malarkey yourself. Less light is better? No light system replicates
full sunlight, or even a small fraction of it. If you ride in such
remote areas that you don't have competing light from street lights,
houses, cars or whatever, that's great. I'm sure your hub/light
combo is very nice. I would like to have one myself, but please
spare us the looney statements like less light is better.

Oh, stop the simplistic sophistry already. As you well know from
previous threads, a higher power rating does not necessarily equal
more light on the road. You've also seen and participated in the
discussions about dark adaptation of the eye, which is a key issue in
understanding effective bike lighting.

Of course no light replicates full sunlight except in a small cone
(which by the way is not hard to achieve, but isn't all that
applicable to bike lights); I didn't say it did and you should read
more closely.

I live in an urban area- Minneapolis/St. Paul MN to be precise. I
ride here at night, and I ride at night in southern and southeastern
Minnesota regularly as well. I see just fine with my Schmidt/Lumotec
combination, despite the ill-informed claims to the contrary.

A Muzi said:

I just came in from riding my bike with a Soubitez CL-89, the old
model. This one's been on many a bike. It's as quiet as new - pretty
darned quiet - and fairly bright. No complaints here.

It comes down, I think, to matter of taste. I find that sort of light
adequate and it has cost me less than $5 in bulbs over a lifetime of
use. I also never leave it home.

One last thought. Mine are set up to run along a radian of the wheel
and have a Margil rubber cap. They can be set up so as to make a racket
but it isn't inherent.

What does it mean to "run along a radian of the wheel?"

I've never owned a dynamo, and I can address the original question from
one person's perspective. I shopped for dynamos last time I needed to
replace my lights. My LBS had lots of battery lights I could look at
first-hand, but I couldn't get my hands on any dynamo systems. How is
the average consumer going to evaluate the dynamos if we can't see them?
It reminds me of the salesperson that was pretty hesitant to let me walk
outside the store to try sunglasses...

Childhood memories of dynamos consist of the el cheapo versions
discussed elsewhere in this thread. I usually commute with "lightweight"
tires (currently Avocet FasGrip 32-622), and I can't imagine that the
tread on these tires would endure the torture that those old dynamos
inflicted. A dynamo hub appeals to me, but it would make it difficult to
switch out wheels if I had a flat or if I wanted to switch to/from the
studded snow tires.

I would like to have a dynamo light that I didn't have to charge, remove
when I parked, and all that stuff. But it isn't an easy thing to figure
out when the only available equipment is mail-order.

--
Dave
dvt at psu dot edu

Just to partially change the subject: have you guys really found that helmet-mounted lights are best? I ask because (while I usually -do- put a small, fairly dim Cateye LED light on my helmet just to provide another thing for drivers to see) over the years I've found that it is far better to mount the headlight as low as reasonably possible, i.e. on the fork blade or hanging down from a front rack if you have one. Imperfections in the road jump out at you more ... if the beam's coming from basically where your eyes are, it's quite a bit harder to see the bumps, because the shadows aren't there to guide you.

Look, everyone seems to have gotten hotter and botherder than I hoped. Of -course- NiteRiders put out way more light than a generator setup. I was just waxing enthusiastic about not needing to fiddle around with batteries since I have run out of lights one too many times (usually my own fault, as I just forgot the plug the bike in until an hour before my ride or went to work and left the charger at home). Plus the, uhhhh, feng sui of self-sufficiency is kinda cool. Plus, I think basically any cycling enthusiast would kind of dig the Schmidt setup just because it's so brilliantly conceived and executed, that's all.

quote='Tim McNamara'David Damerell said:

Tim McNamara said:

David Damerell said:

Tim McNamara <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>OTOH, LED taillights are markedly superior to incandecent ones
>that are usually used with generators. I use these without a
>second thought.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Why not use one of the wide selection of standlight-equipped LED
rear lights for use with dynamos?

Quoted message said:

Don't want wires all over the place.

Fair enough; but that's completely different from what you first
said, that they are superior to dynamo rear lights.

I was inadequately specific, thinking incandescent tail lights as I
was typing. LEDs are superior (IMHO, YMMV, etc) to incandenscent tail
lights. The power source is not relevant. last time I checked,
British law required incandescent and not LED tail lights- did that
law get updated yet? Laws always lag behind technology.[/QUOTE]

Matt O'Toole said:

Quoted message said:

Tim McNamara says...

Quoted message said:

Malarkey. This is simply a perpetuation of the myth that a "good"
headlight is one that replicates full sun lighting conditions.
This actually makes it harder to see well at night by interfering
with dark adaptation of the retina. Close objects are overly
bright with these lights and dazzle the eye, much like looking
into the headlights of an oncoming car. I see better with my
Schmidt hub with a 3W Lumotec Oval lamp than I have ever seen with
any of my high-powered battery lights. Even descending at 40 mph
on curvy roads is fine.

40 MPH? Come on. I live in some of the hilliest country
imagineable, with >10% grades all over the place. Rarely do I see
40 MPH. Even if I rode these roads at night, I'd be on the brakes
the whole time, no matter what lights I was using.

Better check your bike, something must be wrong if you rarely hit 40
mph. Hell, I've nearly hit that in sprints (38.5 mph is/was my top
end sprint, not good enough to win any races), let alone on descents.
Heck, I can go 30 mph down a 6-8% grade like the Smith St. High Bridge
in St. Paul.

As for where I ride, I live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area which
gives access to some nice- if rather short at 600 ft max- hill both
locally at south east from here in the Winona area. Look it up on a
topo map- nice and hilly thanks to the limestone bluffs and the
Mississippi River. A little further south and one gets into the
driftless area which is marvelously rolling and beautiful. 40 mph on
descents is at least a weekly event around here. There's even a few
hills around here that will allow 50 mph (there's one great hill in
town, Ramsey Hill, which is about a 15-18% grade and would allow near
50 mph- but for traffic and the stoplight at the bottom...).

A Muzi said:

One last thought. Mine are set up to run along a radian of the wheel
and have a Margil rubber cap.

Ummm, I think that's a Clyde Frazier-like reach for a fancy word that might not be whatcha really wanted ... a radian is a measure of an angle. An angle measuring 360° is the same as an angle measuring 2π radian. I think maybe you mean a tangent or chord -- but I'm not sure because that would be pretty obvious when talking about a tire-driven generator!!

;-)

cyccommute said:

Tim McNamara said:

[email hidden] writes: <snip> "Far, far superior" is only
an opinion, not a fact. I've got both of the lights whereof you
speak, and since getting the Schmidt and Lumotec I haven't used the
NiteRider except as a flashlight around the house. IMHO the
Schmidt is superior in both lighting and convenience. But how can
this be, you ask, since more is better and 15 watts is obviously
superior to 3 watts? Is there really no comparison? Let's put
that assumption to the test, shall we?

Let's put some of your assumptions to the test shall we?

Always an excellent idea.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

First, let's start with convenience. To use the NiteRider, I have
to plan ahead to make sure the battery is charged up. I can't just
go out for a night ride on a whim. To use the Schmidt, all I have
to do is pedal the bike and flip a switch. It's 8:40 at night as I
type this and I could go on a ride with my Schmidt in 15 minutes.
I'd need a lead time of four hours or more to go on a ride with the
NiteRider- so I could leave after midnight.

Convenience: Batteries always ready to go. I have mutliple sets
cobbled together from various sources. Charged, checked and
exercised monthly. I can still be out the door in 15 minutes.
Plus, if I want to go for a road ride, I can swap lights to the bike
easily or if I want to ride a mountain bike I can change to that
bike or any of the others in my fleet. Can't do that with a hub
dynamo or easily with any other style.

You've demonstrated my point, thanks. You've got a lot less
convenience because you have to plan ahead, charge up all the
batteries, make sure you grab one that's charged when you decide to go
out for a ride, etc. You are correct in that going for a mountain
bike ride is less convenient with a hub generator, for two reasons.
First, my hub generator is built into a 700C wheel. Second, I don't
have a mountain bike. I do ride offroad on whatever bike I happen to
be on without worrying about it, but a hub generator is not a good
choice for slow off-road riding. I'd already mentioned that
limitation, which I am sure that someone of your astuteness already
noted. I'll happily stipulate that hub and bottle generators are not
a good choice for MTBs.

Oddly enough, though, by some miracle of technology called a "quick
release," I *can* easily swap wheels from one bike to the next. I
have a lamp mounted on several bikes and just swap the generator
hubbed wheel between them. That adds, oh, about 2 minutes to the prep
time.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Second, to use the NiteRider, I have to plan the distance of my
ride based on my estimate of the available battery life- which
changes with the temperature, how long it's been charging, etc. I
have to leave a margin of safety for flat tires or just guessing
wrong about battery life. With the Schmidt, I can ride whatever
length of time I feel like.

Distance: Because I use my lights for transportation, I know how
long I'm going to be out. If I want to be out longer or go for a
recreational ride, I carry more batteries and I carry more then one
light so that if I want I can extend the ride by using only one at a
time.

So you're hauling several lighting systems around to make up for their
individual inadequacies. I guess that if that works for you, go for
it. But don't bother to make the claim that this is some sort of
equivalence to the convenience of a hub generator system (which I do
carry spares for- light bulbs which take 30 seconds to replace and
weigh a few grams apiece).

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Third, the lamp for my NiteRider is (naturally) mounted on my
helmet, which puts the source of illumination above my eyes. This
results in decreased depth perception through washing out the
information needed about the road surface. The pool of light is
shorter, since it had to be pointed down at a sharper angle in
order to see the road in front of the wheel, which leaves the road
ahead unlit. There is an advantage in that the beam is pointed
with head movement, so the light tends to fall on whatever I am
looking at- but if I am looking away from the road, I lose
peripheral vision that might reveal something in the road that I
might hit. The lamp for my Schmidt is mounted at the fork crown,
giving a much longer pool of light that illuminates both the riad
right in front of my wheel as well as a block ahead. Since the
road is always illuminated, I have the advantage of being able to
see something in the road with peripheral vision if I am looking
away.

I ride with a 15 watt NiteRider on my helmet all the time. If I
lose the battery on that one I will transfer a handlebar lamps
battery to helmet because I find it far more useful than the
handlebar mount. I have never experienced any problems with depth
perception from a helmet mounted lamp even when riding singletrack
trails with lots of rocks. In fact, the higher mount makes for
shorter shadows and I can pick out details better.

The reverse is actually true- the shorter shadows reduce the
visibility of surface textures. You're demonstrably incorrect on this
(see, for example, James J. Gibson's _The Senses as Perceptual
Systems_ and _The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception_ and Lloyd
Kaufman's _Perception: The World Transformed_). This also reduces
your depth perception, because most of our perception of depth is
actually related to textural information on the ground, not binocular
vision which ceases to be a significant factor in depth perception at
distances greater than about 50 meters. Humans can estimate far
greater distances quite accurately.

Quoted message said:

With lights mounted on the handlebar and a helmet mounted light, I
adjust the helmet light to shine in front of the handlebar light so
I don't have any sort of problem with a sharp beam angle. No
problems with peripheral vision either since the light goes where my
head goes and will illuminate anything I want to look at.

So here you are using two light systems- a handebar light and a helmet
light- to make up for the deficiencies of both. This again
demonstrates the lack of equivalence and superiority of the generator
hub and low mounted, appropriately collimated headlamp. Although if
you mounted your handlebar light about a foot lower on the bike, you'd
make up for a lot of the it's problems.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Fourth, the NiteRider is so bright that it interferes with dark
adaptation by over-lighting close or reflective objects. This
actually makes it harder to see while riding at night, not better.
My Schmidt/Lumotec, providing less intense light but better
coverage, lets my eyes get dark adapted, so that 40 mph descents on
unfamiliar roads feel fine. People with normal night vision can
see with these lights just fine.

Quoted message said:

Fifth, the highly focused beam of the NiteRider doesn't illuminate
street signs unless I point the light at them (resulting in
dazzling brightness that makes it hard to see well for the next
couple of minutes). The Schmidt/Lumotec provides a wide enough
beam to allow me to at least see street signs and usually to read
them; since these often contain moderately helpful information,
IMHO this is good.

Now this just doesn't make sense. How can the light interfere with
dark adaptation by over lighting close objects AND not illuminate?
I can illuminate a street sign from blocks away if needed and have
done it often. Never had any problem with being blinded by flashing
my light on a reflective sign either, even when riding along a dark
creek park where they have lots of them to warn rafters of up coming
hazards. (Are they reflective for those roving bands of night time
watersports enthusiasts?)

One of the problems of these high powered lights is an overly tight
beam in a misguided effort to make as bright a pool of illumination as
possible. The tight beam illuminates in a small cone, which does not
include the street signs unless the light is pointed up at them and
off of the road. You are left having to decide which you want to see-
the road or things above the road or off to the side. My Lumotec,
having a broader and very even spread of light, doesn't make me have
to make such choices.

At PBP last summer, many folks using NiteRiders and the like (as well
as LED headlights, which have the same problem of a narrow beam) were
to be found riding behind guys like me with generators and Lumotecs.
We could see better than they could, and their actions demonstrated
this. They were also hauling at least one and usually two backup
batteries, and had to have more waiting at the bag drops- and they
were still stressed about their batteries running out before they got
to the next controle or the sun came up.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Sixth, I don't like the feeling of the battery cable running up the
back of my neck and the extra weight of the light on my helmet.
For that matter, I don't always wear a helmet to attach the
NiteRider to.

Personal preference.

Indeed.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So, the Schmidt/Lumotec may not be the best choice for you for your
own reasons (e.g., off-road riding at slow speeds is not a
situation where the Schmidt works well). That's fine. But this
malarkey that the NiteRider is "far, far superior" is hogwash. It
does put out more light, but it is less useful than the Schmidt.

You might want to add "for me" to that last statement. For Russell
(and myself) the battery lights are "far, far superior" to dyanamos.
I've tried them and not found them to be that useful. Bottle ones
don't work on the steep sideways of mountain bike tires (tend to
creep into the wheels). They don't work off-road. I have multiple
bikes that I use and I might want to ride a mountain bike one day, a
road bike the next or a fixed gear the next, so rather then having
multiple dynamos, one set of lights (actually 3 lamps and several
batteries)works out better for me and, perhaps, others.

But that wasn't what Russell said, was it? Nope. He said, as if it
were a fact, that NiteRiders were "far, far superior." I was just
pointing out that he is wrong. They may work better for him, but that
mere fact doesn't make them objectively or universally superior.

Quoted message said:

So let's be careful with throwing around the "hogwash" comments,
shall we?

What fun would that be? This is Usenet!

M. Chandler said:

Frank Krygowski said:

The Schmidt is widely acknowledged as the "best in the world"
generator. If it's too expensive for you, you can get a Shimano
hub generator for perhaps $60. You can get other recognized name
brand generators for prices down to $35 or so, and you can find a
few cheap ones for less than $20. And BTW, the differences are not
in light output, so much as in efficiency and perhaps longevity.

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub
generators, but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless
someone knows otherwise).

As far as I know, this is correct. But there is a Schmidt hub for 20"
wheels (pricey as always, though. If you're putting it on an old
Raleigh Twenty, the hub is worth several times the value of the rest
of the bike!).

Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub
generators, but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless
someone knows otherwise).

As far as I know, this is correct. But there is a Schmidt hub for 20"
wheels (pricey as always, though. If you're putting it on an old
Raleigh Twenty, the hub is worth several times the value of the rest
of the bike!).

LWB recumbent w/20" front wheel. So for now, I'm using a 10w Niterider
(Trailrat 2.0).

--
Mark Chandler
Superior, CO
http://www.MileHighSkates.com

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Just to partially change the subject: have you guys really found that
helmet-mounted lights are best? <snip> ... if the beam's coming
from basically where your eyes are, it's quite a bit harder to see the
bumps, because the shadows aren't there to guide you.

With a helmet mounted light I can direct the beam where I want to look,
not where the bike is pointing. It allows a little more anticipation.
But I agree that it does not highlight bumps the way a bar-mounted light
does. Both is best.

snipped

Quoted message said:

Plus the, uhhhh, feng sui of self-sufficiency is kinda cool.

Since I generate my own wind and water no matter what light I'm using,
my feng shui is OK. ;-)

Rick

Oh, guys: if you want to swap the generaor setup quickly between bikes, just mount the headlight to the hub itself -- just a piece of aluminum clipped into the QR will do fine ... I remember seeing this on Sheldon Brown's amazing web page. This is especially good because you don't have any brackets, etc. left on your frame, and the low position is a good spot to run the light from.

quote='M. Chandler'Tim McNamara said:

Quoted message said:

I, personally, would love to use one of the new Shimano hub
generators, but they're not compatible with 20" wheels (unless
someone knows otherwise).

As far as I know, this is correct. But there is a Schmidt hub for 20"
wheels (pricey as always, though. If you're putting it on an old
Raleigh Twenty, the hub is worth several times the value of the rest
of the bike!).

LWB recumbent w/20" front wheel. So for now, I'm using a 10w Niterider
(Trailrat 2.0).

--
Mark Chandler
Superior, CO
milehighskates.commilehighskates.comOpen ↗[/QUOTE]