Dynamo help please - touring bike project

[Grafix]

Some experience or advice required please!

I'm just about finished with a project to restore/renew a 1989 British Eagle Touristique for light touring (And Lejog next year). Really happy with how the bike has come out - it is silent and responsive but obviously no lightweight - a neat trick it pulls of - and it makes me really enjoy riding it.

I want to fit a good dynamo light set but cannot decide whether to go for a dynohub or a (high quality) bottle dynamo. I would mount the dynamo on the LHS rear chainstay.

I like the elegance of the installed dynohub but it means 'ruining/rebuilding' a perfectly good set of wheels. On the other hand a bottle dynamo can be 'off' with zero drag when not needed. For me that will be 90% of the time as the lights are for bad weather and when I get caught out - I am not planning to ride in the dark very often.

I would either go for a shimano DH-3N80 hub or a Nordlicht bottle dynamo.

Any experience out there that can help me make the decision please?

Here are a couple of images of the bike as it stands now after its restoration was completed last week.

 

[Jonny69]

I've got a couple of bikes with dynohubs and to be honest you don't even notice it's there. For how integrated they are I'd say go dynohub. Those new ones draw even less power off the wheel than my 50s and 60s ones too.

 

[mattr]

Yup, I was looking at one last year for mtb touring, efficiency of the hub dynamos is incomparable to anything from even 10 years ago. Once you have no load you'll only be loosing a fraction of a watt.

Plus they are always set up pretty as near to perfectly as is possibly. A bottle dynamo can be set up very badly (I.e 15 watts of drag to produce 3 w of power........)

Hub dynamos don't slip either, important if you are going to be using it as a bad weather bail out.

 

[mattr]

Can you even get decent tyres with dynamo strips any more?
Or are you stuck with 6 quid town bike tyres from halfords?

 

[mjray]

Re:

Schwalbe Delta Cruisers and most of the Marathons have dynamo strips. Various Continental tyres do too. Even though I currently use a mix of bottle dynamo, solar-charged and battery lights, I'd go for dynohub if there's no reason not to.

 

[Grafix]

Cheers gents,

I was heading to a hub dyno initially but (oddly) the simplicity of a bottle dyno started to appeal - as did the fact that it could be truly 'off'. Still undecided if I am honest but I can see the fact that a dynohub is hoing to be much more fit and forget.

Any idea how much an LBS charges to rebuild a wheel round a new dynohub these days?

Jeff.

 

[mjray]

LBS rebuild costs vary. I've seen everything from £20+parts upwards.

If you go for a bottle dynamo (either temporarily or for good), then I like Axa HR with the cantilever boss mount. They're a bit rare in this country but they don't damage the stay/fork like a clamp usually does.

 

[barry2017]

Two thoughts.

1. Dynamos are great, but there are inevitably wires which don't look nice. For touring, a handlebar mounted light is probably more useful as you can use it as a torch.
2. That straddle wire looks much higher than it needs to be. Shorten it and your brakes will get better.

 

[Grafix]

Funnily enough I managed to find one of those canti dynamo mounts described today - but it had to come from Rosebikes in the end - none left in the UK at the moment.

I think I'm going to go with a bottle to begin with using that mount on the rear stay and see how it goes - its much cheaper and completely reversible if I decide a hub is the way forward.

PS - I'm not so sure my straddle wire is too long - maybe a fraction only. Sure if I had low-profile cantis it would be miles too high - but not with the very wide tektros I have. The wire is almost 90 degrees to the arm's pivot-line when the pad hits the rim - so thats about as efficient as they can get. Certainly they feel good.

Black Mountain Cycles has a good online article about setting up canti brakes - and the image below from their site showing the 'optimum' straddle set up for wide-style cantis is pretty similar to mine.

Cheers,
Jeff.

 

[barry2017]

No, that's miles too long. Still, they're your brakes, so set them up however you like.

As to the bottle cage dynamo, just make sure you set them up inline so they don't eat your tyres.