Comment by kccqzy
8 hours ago
These are fine for bike commuters, and I’ve had them before. But they are in general not fine for recreational bicyclists; these people would gladly pay a hundred dollars for a new tire to shave off three watts and are not about to add any unnecessary human-powered accessories.
An exception is bikepackers, who may prize reliability and runtime over brightness and weight. But then the dynamo we're talking about is $200-$400 and that's not including the light.
Though you can get Shimano Dynohubs pretty cheaply:
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/hubs-front/shimano-nexus-dhc3000...
Dynohub history rabbit hole for those interested:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/dynohubs.html
> An exception is bikepackers, who may prize reliability and runtime over brightness and weight. But then the dynamo we're talking about is $200-$400 and that's not including the light.
No, it's about a tenth of that, light included.
Amazon has the Shimano dynohub for $125. Then you have to build a wheel. You might be able to re-use your rim if it's got 36 holes.
I explored dynohubs in the past, but LEDs and LiPo batteries have really narrowed the gap. In my garage, I've got a super long USB cable that we all use for charging our lights. I've used cheap lights from AliExpress, and they are actually quite durable.
Nonsense. At $20 you'll be very hard-pressed to get even a cheap dynohub alone, and that's before the wheelbuild and the light. And bikepackers aren't going to be satisfied with ultra-low-end wheels, anyway.
1 reply →