On 3/31/2021 12:17 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, March 30, 2021 at 7:29:29 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/30/2021 2:59 PM, sms wrote:
On 3/29/2021 5:02 PM, Sepp Ruf wrote:

snip

Hold on, Jeff, I'm sorry for the little misunderstanding. I only
linked to
Ulli Horlacher's latest work there, presented at de.rec.fahrrad on
Fri, 26
Mar 2021 08:06:31 +0000 (UTC). Actually, I do not even agree with the
concept of basing one's entire front lighting on one, single beam lamp,
however expensive and reliable it may be.

Most people in the U.S. with dynamo lights (and there aren't a lot of
them!) also have some sort of battery powered light, even just an
inexpensive USB-rechargeable light.
I very much doubt that statement arose from anywhere but your
imagination. You can't possibly have data to back it up.

It's true there aren't a lot of U.S. cyclists with dyno lights. That's
mainly because there aren't a lot of U.S. cyclists who use their bikes
as anything but toys and exercise machines. There isn't the critical
mass to form a target market for a light that's always available at the
flick of a switch plus gives far better illumination than almost all
battery lights.

That's total nonsense. Pre-pandemic, I rode with dozens or hundreds of commuters every day, probably one out of thirty had a dyno -- if even that.

You live in the bike commuting capitol of the U.S., but the total number
of your commuters is still minuscule compared to the number of U.S.
bicyclists. A company thinking about "What shall we market?" still looks
on bike commuters, justifiably, as a tiny niche market. As a result,
most cyclists never see a dyno system for sale.

People prefer brighter, battery powered lights.

People "prefer" what they are told to buy, which is what's on top of the
counter when they wander into a bike shop. If shops had dyno systems
available and explained their advantages, more Portlanders would buy them.

Every time I hear your story of cohorts admiring your bright light, I think WTF? I've got SP PD8 dyno hub driving a Luxos B, and its inadequate for night riding anywhere other than lighted streets.

I can't explain that (and with you'd trade your system for my Oculus). I
don't know if your problem is electrical (something wrong with the
light), age-related vision problems (but I'm older than you) or just
mis-perception, similar to the one in 50 motorists on yesterday's
freeway drive who chose to blind everyone else by running their high beams.

Again, on the ride where the Eyc gave trouble my friend had his battery
light off most of the way because, as he said, it adds nothing to mine.
Yet its what he uses when he does the ride solo. Now most (not all) of
that ride is on a quiet MUP, but a dark MUP is pretty much the opposite
of your "lighted streets."

Part of your mis-perception might be ever-increasing expectations. In my
view we've had a lot of that in bicycling, where a bike is "too heavy"
if it's 20 pounds, where 9 rear cogs are suddenly way too few, where
actually having to move a mechanical lever makes shifting too difficult,
etc. You seem to have bought into the myth that anything under 250
lumens is too dim.

Its nice having the dyno when all else fails, but it is not a serious primary light on the roads and in the weather I ride.

I've talked about your wet night riding before, but IIRC you've never
responded to the fact that on a really wet road, a motorist can't even
see his car's headlights on the road. It's an easy to understand optical
phenomenon, and it doesn't mean that you can't see obstacles. Adding
excess lumens to that problem only bounces more down the road into the
eyes of other road users.

And yes, I ride with a battery "flasher" -- an L&M that pulses. It differentiates my solid beam from other solid beams, vis., cars and other bikes in two way facilities.

Did you really have problems with that before you got a pulsing beam? I
don't ride at night as much as when I was commuting, but I still have
motorists waiting inordinate amounts of time to let me pass. I've never
had a remotely close call.

I wonder if you're experiencing a combination of "safety inflation" plus
placebo effect. As in "All I know is, I've had far fewer flat tires
since I bought my St. Christopher's medal! I'll never ride without it!"


--
- Frank Krygowski