More on Lights

by Pamela Blalock with John Bayley

Schmidt SON

In the winter of 98, we started hearing about the Schmidt generator hub. We heard through the Internet that Chris Juden of the CTC had written a rave review of this 65% efficient dynamo hub made by Schmidt. Before we even received our copy of the magazine in the mail, we phoned the CTC shop and ordered two. Chris Juden is one of the best and most objective reviewers of all things bike related, and his recommendation was good enough to get me to try this hub. We took our new hubs to Peter White to have him quickly build up wheels. My first impression was WOW. And 10+ years later, it still is. The drag was, for all practical purposes, unnoticeable. The light was brilliant. I could use any tire I wanted, and the icing on the cake - no whine. The Lumotec lamps that we got with the hub focused the light nicely on the road in front of the bike, and had a voltage regulator to prevent blowing out bulbs at high speed. And it just got better and better. Eventually we learned of a way to run dual 3 watt lamps with full brightness at moderate speeds, so we could have one aimed close and one farther out for higher speeds. We were so impressed that we encouraged and convinced loads of folks in the US to mail order them from the CTC shop in England. After hearing of some Americans reluctance to mail order from England, as well as our glowing reviews, Peter slowly realized there was a market for these hubs in the USA. His first order was for 5, with us promising to take 1. He sold them all before they even arrived. He has now sold many hundreds of these hubs to American randonneurs, tourists, and commuter, and now is the North American importer for Schmidt. Your friendly local shop can get the hubs from him.

If your local shop can't help, I recommend Elton Pope-Lance (elton at harriscyclery.net) and the other fine folks at Harris Cyclery, who learned quite a bit at the feet of the late Sheldon Brown, both about practical cycling equipment, lighting, fixed gears, etc. As they are a few blocks from my home, I often meet Elton and others on the road, commuting, with their lights.

Also, St John's Street Cycles in the UK carries a wide selection and variety of all types of lighting systems, including Schmidt hubs and many other types of dynamos. They are able to handle shipping worldwide quite well. (We have bought many things from them, including a bike frame, and shipping to the us in Massachusetts was as fast as getting things shipped here from the west coast.) Their prices include VAT, most of which would be deducted for export. We've found their prices to be quite competitive.

There is a wealth of information on both the Schmidt and the Busch and Muller web sites.

We now have 6 wheels with Schmidt hubs. We have used them for commuting for touring and for both BMB and PBP. In 99, we used a Schmidt with dual 3 watt Lumotec headlamps on our tandem. We took the 9:45 PM special tandem and recumbent start and rode through the first night and well into the second night before taking a sleep stop in Brest. The tandem start was incredibly fast, and the 180 degree turn at the bottom of a hill a few miles into the event was something to see with tandems and recumbents flying around the corner at high speed. We hit some pretty good speeds that first night and it was nice to have brilliant lights. It was also great to have continuous light with no need to stop to change batteries. John used his Schmidt hub the next year for BMB, again with great success. Our original thought was to just have two wheels and move wheels around on various bikes. But different rim and tire sizes and preferences on various bikes made it more convenient to just have more wheels built, and now we have 6 wheels. John and I each have a Schmidt wheel dedicated to our commuting bikes, usually sporting a studded tire in the winter. Our expedition tandem has 26" wheels, so has it's own dedicated Schmidt. And the sporty tandem inherited a 40 hole Schmidt wheel from the old 700C touring tandem. And we also each have one (lighter) for our single brevet bikes. Among the six, we have 32, 36 and 40 hole drillings, as well as different selections of rim widths for the different applications. The tandem and commuters have beefier rims, while the single brevet wheels have a lighter weight setup. This collecting of wheels isn't a cheap hobby, but if you are able to specify wheels up front, rather buy a second wheel, it isn't so expensive. If 6 wheels doesn't show our faith in this system, I don't know what else could! That said, I will emphasize that it is easy to move a wheel from bike to bike, if the wheel sizes are compatible. Extra lamps for each bike make it a bit easier.

For the budget minded cyclist, Shimano also make a dynamo hub, the Nexus, at a much lower cost than the Schmidt. They've improved the design greatly over the years. I don't have one, but I cycle with others who do and report quite favorably. Bicycle Quarterly have a detailed comparison of various dynamo hubs.

So while the newer sidewall dynamos have become more efficient than older ones, for me they don't hold a candle to a dynamo hub. For the cyclist on a tight budget, a sidewall dynamo is an option, but so is the Shimano hub and a basic lumotec lamp. The efficiency numbers for sidewall dynamos can be slightly misleading, since it is highly dependent on alignment, and the numbers do not adequately take into account the tire - roller interface, or the aforementioned problem of slippage in the wet. Rollers, designed to address this issue, may shorten the life of the tire, and in some cases, even cause punctures. The Schmidt hub is more efficient and has none of the problems found with sidewall units with tire compatibility, slippage, whine, or alignment.

To see the article that originally inspired us to try the Schmidt, click here.

Dual Headlights

I've mentioned the dual light setup several times. The light from one lumotec is very good. The light from two at speed is better. With two, you can aim one close and one far away, or cover a longer patch of road. Two lamps add a slight bit of drag over one, but it's so minimal that I still can't tell. Two lights take about 11-12 mph to reach full brightness. The light from just one light is brighter at a lower speed than from two, so if climbing a mountain at night or in stop and go city conditions, I would switch off the second light, but otherwise I'd leave both on all the time. Special secondary lights have been produced with the switch wired in parallel with the bulb so the second light can be switched off without affecting the primary. If you simply use two standard lamps, switching off either one would switch off both, since the switches on standard lamps are wired in series with the bulb.

The picture below is a secondary lamp. In addition to the difference in the switch wiring, there is a male coupling connector added to one the spade connectors on a secondary. This is to connect a female spade connector from one lamp to a female spade connector on the other. The remaining two female spade connectors, one from each lamp connect to the hub. (And you thought lights weren't sexy!)

This is not a redundant system, where you can have either light on, but rather a supplemental where you can have just the primary on, or both on. In the photo below, I have my two lights mounted on the low-rider bosses on each fork blade. The lights are aimed so I get a long long wide patch of light (with just a bit of overlap in the middle), with no shadow from the fork (which you would get with just one light mounted on the side of the fork). I also have the secondary aimed farther out to give more light farther out at faster speeds.)

Schmidt introduced their own light, the E6, based on the very impressive optics of the Bisy lamp. The beam pattern on the road is much narrower than the Lumotec, but the bright light stretches out longer. I find the E6 beam too narrow to use alone, so I use dual lights if using an E6. The E6 has a big switch that can be operated even when wearing heavy winter mittens. Another advantage is the lens simply twists open to change the bulb, and closes very securely. There is no little tab to break off like the Lumotecs (my only real complaint with the Lumotec). In my opinion, the difference in the beam on the road is not a matter of one being better than the other. They are different. The E6 is narrow and long, while the Lumotec is wider. I have my dual E6 lights aimed side by side, while my dual Lumotec setup has one the primary aimed closer and the secondary farther out. One final difference: the Lumotec light has a reflector as part of the lens, while the E6 does not. The photo below taken in our garage with a flash shows this quite nicely!

BTW, these photos were taken when I was trying out a bunch of different lights. Only two lights work at a time (off the dynohub). Having multiples mounted was just to make it easy to do some comparisons. Any any time, it is not unusual for my commuter to sport a fleet of lights, as I am a light addict and always testing something! (I do keep the actual randonneurring bike equipped more simply with a well tested and proven lighting system, as opposed to the fleet.)

I do carry some sort of battery backup light as well. Stuff happens. Years ago while doing the Terrible Two double century on tandem we took a little tumble that warped our front wheel such that it was unrideable. A support car came along and the driver loaned us the wheel off her touring bike, but of course it did not have a dynamo hub. The time we lost from the accident meant we would be riding at night, but as we had not planned on either the accident or night riding, we didn't have a backup light or power source. Fortunately we were able to borrow lights later. Lesson learned. There are lots of nice small battery powered lights that will work well should something go wrong, but aren't necessarily what I would use for a primary light.

There is an option of using a wired taillight with the generator, but we do not do this. In the past, both of us had gone to a lot of trouble to set up nicely sealed wiring systems to the back of the bike and even to a rear fender. But then when packing a bike up to go to PBP, it practically has to be undone! And even if you get it super neat, the extra wiring still clutters the bike more than we like. So we go for a couple of battery powered taillights and keep wiring short and simple.

Bulbs are available in 2.4 watt and 3 watt. If not using a wired taillight, use the 3 watt bulb in the primary. Wired taillights draw .6 watts and should be mated with 2.4 watt headlights. The secondary should always have a 3 watt bulb regardless of wired taillight. One of the other disadvantages to using a wired taillight with dual headlights is the need to carry two different wattage bulbs, and keep track of which is which and which goes in which light.

There are lots of new LED options which eliminate concern about changing bulbs and are discussed on the next page, so keep reading.