damerell

I've been vaguely thinking about hub dynamos for some time; and this desire was crystallised by an admittedly implausible failure that took out _both_ my battery headlights; so I shelled rather too much money for a Schmidt hub dynamo, Bisy headlight, and B&M taillight to go with it.

Gosh.

Dynamos have come a long way since the flaky bottle jobs of my childhood, to put it mildly. The new kit causes barely perceptible drag, and simultaneously outdoes both the halogen "seeing" light and the LED "being seen" light I mount (I did replace the battery lights, since I don't believe in single-point-of-failure lighting), all from one headlamp with a nominally lesser capability than the incandescent battery light.

Building a wheel with all-new components for once was a pleasant experience - on every previous occasion at least one of hub, spokes or rim have been old and covered in road-filth - although I must get it dirty quickly to reduce the chance of some lowlife making off with it.

I've stuck up a Web page full of dull dynamo facts - who I bought it from, what I've got, what alternatives there are, and how it all gets wired up, since the latter is not really written down anywhere Google knows about.

Last but not least, Suntour's self-energising rear cantilevers are marvellous too - no doubt why they are not made anymore. It's a rare experience to buy a bunch of bike kit all of which works amazingly well...