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Old March 5th 17, 07:56 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default More About Lights

Since you people have been talking about lights I've been looking. Like sms I really don't like the idea of having normal batteries that wear out quickly or the idea of always keeping your battery on charge.

This means you need a bulb generator or a hub generator. The hub generator seems a good answer but they don't appear to make half of the power of a bulb generator.

But that's a little hard to tell since they seem to have a great deal of trouble listing the output of the various dynamos.

You can get a 6 watt bulb generator but the hubs appear to all deliver 3 watts.

Now there are extremely efficient hubs that even Frank wouldn't have any trouble peddling in his old broken down and crippled state.

But when you look up the lights you find the same problem - you have a very difficult time finding power in and lumens out.

There are a few things that I really like the idea of in a commuter bike:

A front wheel hub generator - the German Schmidt which is extremely reliable and apparently is 78% efficient so Jorge could not complain that he is having trouble pedalling against the tide.

The Shimano Alfine is an 11-speed rear hub which has the decided advantage of being able to put a total cover chain guard around the entire chain and SINGLE SPEED front ring and still be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

Now building this set of wheel would cost the better part of a thousand dollars and we're all a bunch of cheapskates.

But with bikes costing $5K+ I'm sure you could build the perfect commuter for half that amount.

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