Half the world, anyway. It's called fall and winter. Daylight is below 12 hours in the Northern Hemisphere now, and shrinking steadily to the long night of the Winter Solstice. It's time to light up. Try it, you'll like it.
Dynamo lighting completes my mountain bike commuter. It opens up options for dirt road and trail cruising, too.
The rack I scavenged looks like an
Axiom. It has a tail light bracket built in. It also has two savage spikes on one of the side supports, perhaps to hold a small tire pump. I've already punctured my hand, pulling the pump hose off the valve stem after inflating my tire. Before I saw those off and then discover I have a use for them I'll try sticking wine corks on them
Right after I took these pictures of the Cross Check I improved the tail light mounting with two old-style reflector brackets in place of the P-clamps I had used in the original setup. The reflector brackets hold the light more correctly perpendicular to the road. The P-clamps had a tendency to creep a little and tuck the light under, aiming it ever so slightly downward. It was visible, but its imperfection nagged at me until I found a better way.
Speaking of better ways, for the most unprotected span of wiring on the mountain bike, under the rack to the tail light, I found some clear plastic tubing to use as a conduit. I did not want to run the wire down the side rail of the rack in case I put panniers on. The top hooks would chew the wire.
Dynamo lighting is really cool. We have an account with
Peter White now, so our shop can sell these fun, effective lights to our local clientele, but so far I am our best customer. I would buy at least one more set of the
Busch and Muller IQ Cyo R Plus headlight and
Toplight Line Plus tail light to mount on one more frame that takes 700c wheels. Then I could transfer the dyno wheel from one bike to another. I already got the spare connectors.
Hey, when the sun goes down at 4 p.m. you can stay out half the night and still get to bed at a decent hour.
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Soon, it'll be getting cold - even here in Texas. Barely 85 today and a forecast high of 62 on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI saw that and wondered what you might report.
ReplyDeleteUp here the usual sources are predicting a cold, snowy winter. You have to ask yourself how much of the Old Farmer's Almanac prediction of a cold, snowy winter is based on ski area ad revenues in Yankee Magazine. "Secret formula" indeed. Sunspots. Precession of the Earth's axis. Woolly bear caterpillars. Full-page ads from Killington. Ka-ching! We have your prediction.
The morning weather reports that the cold front has now made it as far as the Texas Panhandle.
ReplyDeleteI was only 4 years old when we lived in Brownsville, Texas, but I got the impression from the locals that the Panhandle was like the arctic tundra with jackrabbits.
ReplyDeleteLove those B+M lights.
ReplyDelete