Dynamo lighting and mini/frame pump tests, properly done...

swhs

L.S.

I hope there are more people like me who are very critical of the rather amateurish and improperly done tests esp. in magazines, of bicycle equipment.

After some discussions on the dutch site http://forum.fiets.nl I collected my experiences, measured and wrote it all up w.r.t. mini/frame pumps and dynamo lighting. Please have a look here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~swhs/fiets/tests/index.html

with esp. experiences with the Edelux light and SON hub in the lighting section, and the Quickex Quicker pro and Lezyne pressure drive on the pumps page.

For some reason, there was no real response on the dutch website when I put up the pump section. Weird, lots of complaints about pumps but no inclination to measure pumps inner barrel diameters, i.e. piston diameters so one can verify what pressures are really possible without ridiculous effort.

Anyway, let me know what you think. These subjects are of course not just for roadbikes, but for touring, city and moutainbike as well, but this may be the optimum section on bikeradar

Regards,

Wouter

chuckcork

Not wishing to detract from your efforts but I assume you've seen the considerable info that is posted on Peter White cycles website about lights and dynamo's?

swhs

chuckcork wrote:

Not wishing to detract from your efforts but I assume you've seen the considerable info that is posted on Peter White cycles website about lights and dynamo's?

Yes, and although there's a lot of information it's incomplete... Have a look at my pages and the points I mention that are essential in a proper review and you'll see what I mean.

To give an example about the beamshots: They are nice but what you really want to give an idea of the light on roads is a long straight flat road (if going up, the light far away will still seem very bright as more gets reflected back to you), and with markers per say 5 or 10 metres.

Also, it's very hard to compare those pictures with what will you actually see yourself when cycling (because of exposure times etc.), or to put it in other words, they need to be gauged. For this you need comparison beamshots with other lights that you are yourself familiar with (would require a large amount of pictures, not doable for me as an individual and PW's website hasn't got enought either), or alternatively a beamshot + other description of how the light appears to you and what you see now that you couldn't with a halogen light. I think the latter is really necessary. A good description is one like the one I put on my webpage, or for example this one from Pamela Blalock (both about the Edelux, hers also about the Supernova E3):

http://groups.google.com/group/randon/msg/b4d532a197373be3

There are lots of other things I could mention, but just look at my pages and let me know what you think. There were a few things I wanted to add, but, eh forgot now what they were

But it will get back to me, and I'll add it then. In any event, the most detailed websites are in german with measurements etc., but again they are incomplete if you consider them as reviews (or buyer's guide). Links etc. are on my pages.