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Have you used the Supernova yet? How is it? I have a Busch and Muller Luxos U but am getting a new bike - a Fairlight Strael - and needed a light for the new bike. Had a few problems with the B&M but they work out cheaper as have built in USB charger but with the discount the difference is not as great.
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I'd also add it depends on your sleeping strategy.
If you're sleeping longer most night, you're riding less in the dark. And don't need a light for long.
If you like riding at night (and people do) then you'll want a dynamo.It really is a preference thing. But if you're not short for cash, I'd just take one. They're super useful.
It's 4w, or at least my son is. At even a poor 150W that's only 3%. It's nothing. You'll loose more forgetting to pump your tyres up to a nice psi every few days. Or carrying 1kg? of batteries does. Or the time spend sorting charging them.
Don't knock it until you've tried it!
There are good reasons to use dynamos but some of that is not right: battery lights are perfectly fine for riding all night and it only takes 5 hours max to recharge battery packs (if you have the right charger) so they don't compromise any sleep strategy that has more than one 5-hour hotel stop on the entire TCR (that is what Rimas actually did, using my batteries, last year!) And batteries don't weigh anything like a kilo.
The threshold power calc is based on an 'average' rider with a threshold of say 240W who is likely to be down to c.120W, 50% of threshold, after the first couple of days. Most dynos take about 6W when they're on which is 5% of 120W. With the dyno, he is down to 114W, making it equivalent of 50% of a 228W threshold.
I'm not trying to evanagelise about not using dynos, but if someone asks for the info it's only fair to give them it!
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Enjoying the close up of your bits.
Which of the E3 Pro or Triple did you decide to go for?
I'm currently weighing up the pros and cons of the road legal light verses super speedy night time cycling. -
I went with the E3 Pro 2 as I don't want to get in trouble with the popo (not really, it was cheaper and at least reckoned it would be OK for night riding). In saying that, I'll take a decent battery powered light too and I've never bothered to use those light lens things for headlights when driving on the continent.
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I wasn’t hating on batteries. I use them in conjunction with a dynamo.
In fact I was advocating them for a lot of people, as they really don’t ride in the dark much they have less need for a dynamo.
My text wasn’t worded well. I meant if you like riding st night (riding all night, and sleeping during the day) you’ll find a dynamo really useful.
However, if (like most) you sleep most hours of they dark, a battery setup will work just fine. -
FWIW, I use a B&M Cyo Premium. 80 lux (Supernova only talks about lumens so can't compare the numbers). I'd say it's as bright as Edelux and Luxos, which has been plenty for me in TCR riding through nights, and in Finnish winter, during which I ride mostly when it's dark. Doesn't have usb like luxos has, less things to break. No problems yet, I've had it since 2015. Recently bought another for my other bike. Cheap too.
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First year used batteries and the second year used a dynamo. Once controlling for altitude I think I approximately went 10-15% faster (more km/day, my moving speed was marginally slower). I think most of the 10% gain was experience and perhaps then next 5% is attritutable to the dynamo. But only because of my stategy which was to sleep every other night so benefited from the really powerful front light and the charging. Still carried one of those massive Anker chargers just in case.
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You have the best perspective having done it both ways.
But 5% sounds like a massive difference - half a day. How does that break down?
There is a learning curve with batteries. On TCR 2016 I made a few mistakes. I didn't take enough power banks: I only had two so I bought two more at a supermarket in France. And I used crappy little individual chargers, instead of a good one that can charge 4 things quickly from one socket, so one hotel room in Bosnia didn't have enough sockets so I couldn't charge one of my batteries properly. And a couple of my wires were shite so I could only use certain wires to charge eg my phone.
But for IndyPac I'd fixed all that, got the right kit, knew how much power I needed and had no problems doing an all-nighter and lots of other night riding on battery lights.
I reckon not using a dynamo saves me a little bit of time but nothing like as much as 5% or half a day. If it's 6W, then thats about maybe c.5% of my average power, so (cube root) 1.7% of my speed = about 0.33km/h, and I might be riding 16 hours per day, so more like 1% or 2-3 hours over the TCR.
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What might one google?
Or better still a link? -
I have something very similar to this.
looks very similar and I got it I think from the German Amazon site.
PBoynton
skinny
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frank9755
DiscoPotato
Samuli
bananaskid
GoatandTricycle
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About
Transcontinental Race No. 6 - TCR6 - #TCRN06 - 2018
Posted by
@hippy
Unfortunately not, stand by for some bizarre logic here but I'm really really bad at budgeting ie will spend it if it's sitting in my account/not high wage earner so find it easier to chip away week by week and didn't have the patience to wait to see if I was actually going to get a place or not. Did get really good deals on most of it though!