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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.
frank9755-
a good (multi-charger) one that can charge 4 things quickly from one socket,
such a good investment those.
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5% is perhaps a bit of an overestimate probably but I was trying to figure out which variables had changed and the only two were dynamo and experience.
Dynamo savings:
Max 30 minutes per day not dawdling at breakfast/lunch trying to get ever on full juice.
45-60 minute saving for every other day when I decided to go through the night on the ‘going to sleep and waking up process’. However you can’t weight this factor as entirely down to the dynamo and this technique is easily possible with batteries.
Confidence, whilst it’ll be difficult to measure but it’s reassuring to know that I’ll never run out of battery. Also as @skinny said using a good dynamo light is brilliant, in my opinion, for night riding. Although, using a powerful front light is difficult to quantify it could potentially save you from hitting a pothole at night, buckling your front wheel and losing a whole pile of time.
Then I remembered another variable - for some reason my phone contract changed and suddenly worked in the EU. This could have been savings of up to 30 minutes per day.
skinny
bananaskid
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.