B&M Lumotec Retro Senseo Plus Test Ride

Last night I took the new dynamo light out for a spin.  It was around 8pm, so not dark but getting there, and ideal time to test out the sensing ability of the lamp.  I first put the light onto the “1” (always on) position and found that it was not coming on consistently.  I then decided to put it into the “S” (automatic) position and found that the light was still not always on, but seemed to be on more often.  At first I was concerned that I would have to go very fast to get the light to work well, seeing the beam come on and then go away was a bit worrying when I was teetering around the 20 km.h^-1 mark.  I later managed to get a look at my reflection in the parked cars and realised that the light was always on, but when it was light enough it just illuminated the small “be-seen” LED portion of the lamp and when I went it was coming on full beam it was because of the dip in light level. 

The stand-light provides enough light to be seen by other road users when stationary.

I am assuming that on my (maybe all of them) lamp the “1” and “S” positions are reversed, but that even when set to always on the lamp uses the sensor to determine what level of light is needed.  I quite like this idea because it will increase the length of time between halogen bulb replacements.  Like most aspects of dynamo lighting, it would have been nice if this feature had been explained somewhere in either the instruction leaflet or on the B&M website.

Dynamo Lighting

Dynamo lights were once common in the UK and USA, but have since fallen out of favour as battery technology progressed and people started using bicycles for sport rather than transportation purposes.  In other countries where cycling continued to be a mainstream method of transportation, dynamos remained popular due to their reliability and the lack of need to purchase and rely on batteries.  In Manchester it is dark almost all of the time (or at least almost all of an average adult’s free time) from October to February making lighting essential if you want to stay mobile in those months.  In Germany in particular it is illegal to use bicycles without a dynamo powered lighting system (except lightweight racers).  This means most German bikes come with lights, which is a legal requirement in some other countries and would make sense in most.

I personally prefer hub dynamos to bottle dynamos because they are generally of  higher quality, are more discreet looking and it just seems to make sense to integrate the dynamo out-of-the-way into the hub.  Its a shame they don’t make rear hub dynamos anymore as having two dynamos would open up some interesting possibilities.

The German law requiring dynamo lights has created a market for high-end dynamo systems, many of which are available here.  Sadly information is patchy, making it off-putting to take the plunge.  With some advice from LC, I decided to invest in a Busch and Müller Lumotec Retro Senseo Plus dynamo headlamp, to be driven by my Sturmey-Archer X-FDD hub discussed previously.  The unwieldy name is in part due to the range of options available, bottle dynamo, hub dynamo, light-sensing auto-on/off, stand-light etc.  Mine has the stand-light, an off-switch (hub dynamo version) and the light-sensing auto-on/off features.

The rear of the lamp has a switch, with three positions, basically off, automatic and on.

The underside of the lamp has pins to drive a rear (0.6 W) lamp.  Modern LED lamps are available which are compatible with this arrangement.  This was not well explained in the product information I encountered, so is essentially a bonus.

These are the pinouts on the dynamo hub.  The Shimano ones are essentially the same, save for a variation in shape.  I don’t yet know about the SON or SRAM versions.  Feel free to comment if you know anything about these hubs.

This is the plastic plug which came with the hub, Shimano hubs come with a similar plug, older Sturmey Dynohubs use screws to make the connection much like older loudspeakers.

The ends of the cable attached to the lamp.  The cable is essentially cheap speaker cable.  The ends are partially stripped like with new speaker cable.  All that needs doing is to remove the wire coating, twist the wires into a single fibre and feed them through the plug and fold them over into the grooves.

Polarity is not important, as the dynamo outputs AC (making it not technically a dynamo) so just bung whichever wire in whichever side you fancy.  The reason I have posted this in such detain is that none of this information is given in either the B&M or Sturmey manuals, and so it might be useful to someone.

The light comes on at about 8 km.h^-1, but this will be lower for smaller wheeled bikes.  There might be a lower limit for wheel size in order to prevent generating too much power for average dynamo lamps.  Maybe one day I’ll put one on a Twenty and find out.  The stand-light is powered by a capacitor, so won’t be available straight away when the lamp is new.  I’m going to go for a spin tonight to test it out properly.

Living “car-free”

I have been inspired to write a post about living car free based on my interactions with friends who are car-dependent.  I don’t usually think of or refer to myself as “car-free”.  I also don’t think of or refer to myself as helicopter-free, tractor-free or snowmobile-free.  I suspect that most other people don’t either, but the car has an almost sacred position in our society, so much so that not having or using one apparently deserves a special term. 

Guide to living “car-free” in (Greater) Manchester:

1) Distance:  People who depend on cars tend to have a very distorted perspective on how far away things actually are.  I know someone who lives less that 300 m from a bus stop at which a once-every-five minutes bus runs along a main road (with bus lanes) to a final stop about 300 m from their workplace.  Because she has been dependent on the car for so long, 300 m (2 minutes walking) is perceived as too far away.

If you are thinking about reducing your dependence on a car but don’t want to take the plunge and get rid of it straight away, my advice to you is to try and go somewhere on foot first.  Some people forget just how easy and stress-free walking is.  Walk to somewhere nearby that you tend to drive to, it probably won’t take much longer and you’ll start to remember that it isn’t that far, and it isn’t that hard.

If it is still a bit too far to the nearest station for you to walk, consider getting a folding bike such as a Brompton or a folding Raleigh Twenty.

2) Cost:  If you can get past the distorted perspective of distance, the next hurdle is the cost of public transport.  Whilst it should be lower, car owners tend to inflate it by comparing the cost of public transport to the cost of fuel for their car for that journey.  It is important to avoid this trap.  The best way I can think of is to average it out over a year.  Compare one year’s use of public transport to one year’s worth of fuel, parking fees, insurance, vehicle excise duty, maintenance and the initial cost of the car (or the total cost of a car loan taken out to cover it), minus the likely return for it at the end of its life with you divided by the number of years you are likely to own the car for.  Suddenly the car is starting to look a lot more expensive.  A good way to look at this is to think of it as a percentage of your income.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 10-20% of an average person’s income.  If you don’t like your job much, think of it as time spent at work; for 15% of income that is 6 hours a week of a 40 hour week to pay for a car.

3) Convenience:  Sometimes you may need to travel late at night or early in the morning.  For me, these times tend to be parties and pub outings, where a car would be useless anyway.  People who come to parties by car tend to leave very early because they need to abstain from drinking, and they seem not to have a very good time.  If you find you need to travel regularly at all hours, a bike can be very useful.  Remember the re-discovering of walking, and learning that a mile is really not that far after-all?  Well its the same for cycling, except you will discover in a matter of weeks that 5 or 10 miles is really not that far on a bike.  I’d bet that anyone could ride 5 miles in half an hour, even on a BMX dressed in a chicken suit.  Once again perception of distance is the problem.  I’d be willing to bet that that kind of distance range covers the needs of most people, especially if used as a supplement to public transport.

A bike can in fact be more convenient than a car.  It will take you from door to door, you can avoid a lot of traffic jams by filtering along the stationary cars and areas such as canal towpaths and other non-car-worthy rights of way can be used to get around, in addition to the roads.  The pushing of special magical underpants and high-visibility clothing by the motoring lobbies may be partially designed as a barrier to the natural hop-on and go convenience of cycling.

4) Weather:  As Billy Connolly said, “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing, so get yourself a sexy raincoat and live a little.”  This applies to cycles too,  there is a secret weapon cyclists can use against the rain which has long been forgotten here in the UK; mudguards.  In all but the heaviest rain the vast majority of water hitting you will be thrown at you from your tyres.  This is also the least pleasant water, containing filth from the road too.  With mudguards you can avoid a lot of the wet, with the rest of the work being done with a raincoat, or if you want to go faster for longer, some bike-specific quick-drying clothes.  You can always carry some spare clothes in a pannier if you think its going to be really rainy.  If you get the bus or the train, this isn’t much of an issue anyway.

On a snow day, most cars will be rendered useless, so its not worth owning one on the basis that it will keep you mobile in the event of snow.  During the Great Snow of 2010 I cycled everywhere, and I was a lot more sure-footed than the cars and a lot of the people.  Just lower your saddle a bit and lower the pressure in your tyres (and make sure they are not overly skinny tyres).  If you fall off its not that bad, the snow makes your fall happen in slow motion, giving you time to right yourself or a soft landing of you can’t.

On a nice day, being on the bike beats car or public transport hands-down.

5) That one thing:  Whenever I discuss the ease of not having a car with someone for this long, it is common for them to give an example of one specific thing they believe is impossible without a car.  Often it involves carrying a large object like a case of beer, or an item of furniture.  A case of beer can be carried with a standard bike pannier rack, and even more easily with a Yuba Mundo.  The Yuba Mundo can also tackle most of the furniture transportable by car.  It is also worth remembering the fairly narrow range of large objects which a car can carry before it become necessary to have the item delivered professionally, combined with the generally infrequent need to transport these items.  Even with a car, you’d probably get a wardrobe or a bed delivered instead.  At least without the car you’ll have plenty of extra cash to pay for the delivery.  Once again, it is perception which needs to be challenged.

6) Family:  This is an area where I lack personal experience, but which I have read a great deal about on blogs such as the Lazy Rider Bicycle Blog, A Most Civilized Conveyance and the community surrounding Bike Portland.  Basically the consensus seems to be that kids are fine as cargo when young, and solutions exist to transport kids on a normal bike.  When they get older there are things like the Bakfiets or on the back of a Yuba Mundo, and eventually they can match your own ability to get around on two-wheels.

Of course often overlooked in these kinds of discussions are the countless families here in the UK who rely solely on public transport.  Discounted child rates are common, in addition to schemes such as the Family Railcard.

Having addressed the main concerns people usually raise when talking about car dependency, I would like to look at some of the advantages of car freedom:

1) Richer:  Without having to pour so much of your wage into the car, you’ll be a fair amount better off.  If you cycle or walk a lot rather than heavily depending on public transport that money is going to be useful because,

2) Fitter:  You’re likely to live longer, as much as ten years longer.  A lot of car-dependents drive their cars to the gym to try and keep fit.  If you walk or cycle to get around that is money that you won’t have to spend at the gym.  The health benefits are not just physical, exercise such as walking and cycling is good for your well-being

3) Happier:  Exercise produces biochemical changes in your brain giving you a pleasant feeling which lasts for a while after exercise.  This has benefits if you are cycling or walking to work because it makes you,

4) More Productive:  Starting the day with a bit of exercise such as walking or cycling makes you more mentally alert and productive.  You might find that after walking or cycling in that work sucks a little bit less.

5) Comfortable:  When I started walking and cycling more I noticed that I started to feel a lot more comfortable in general, clothes fit me better and I found myself feeling too hot or too cold a lot less frequently.  I also started to be less-frequently ill with coughs and colds.

6) Not Drinking Too Much:  OK, the theme starts to fall apart here a bit.  Now that I cycle and walk most places, I get enough exercise so that I don’t have to worry so much about drinking and eating too much.

7) Not part of the problem:  By choosing a car-free lifestyle you are setting an example to others that there is another way by not contributing to the wide ranging environmental, political and social problems associated with mass-car ownership, both locally and globally.

HGV “safety”

I just found out about the new Transport for London poster warning cyclists about the dangers or left turning HGVs over at the Crap Waltham Forest blog.  While I am not against teaching people whereabouts on the road they should avoid in order to not become a victim of negligent HGV operation per se it does appear to be more of the symptom-treating approach which we are all familiar with.  If not crushing someone to death in a dense urban area is hard for a lorry driver to do, maybe TFL would be better considering restricting the times of day these vehicles can enter the centre of London so that they pose a risk to fewer people.   Once again part of the problem is badly thought-out infrastructure which encourages people to get into bad positions at junctions:

8000 km

Yesterday my odometer rolled around to 8000 km (~5000 miles).  I got my odometer in September 2008, meaning I have done 8000 km on the bike in just under two years.  In September 2009 I had done ~3200 km so I have really managed to use the bike a lot more in my second year of odometer ownership.  Those who cycle in competitions and train hard probably rack up 2 or 3 times as much distance, but I don’t cycle competitively or train for rides, almost all of my riding is for transport.  I’m quite pleased.  Pleased enough to use a map tool to draw a radius of 8000 km around Manchester:

I passed the 8000 km mark on a leisure ride with friends from Sowerby Bridge to Manchester along the Rochdale canal, with a few stops at pubs including the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms in Sowerby Bridge, The Golden Lion in Todmorden, The Red Lion in Littleborough, The Slip Inn in Milnrow and The Ship Inn just outside of Castleton.  I hadn’t done much drinking and trail cycling before but the one thing I have learned is that when you are exercising the alcohol has a much reduced effect than when enjoyed as part of an evening sat in a pub.  At the end of the ride I felt like I hadn’t had any alcohol at all, possibly due to the increased metabolic rate from exercise.  It was a very pleasant ride, coming in at around 68 km, which I did on my Raleigh Tourist.  If it can be done on the Tourist it can be enjoyed by anyone with a similar bike, such as a Pashley.

Rainy Ride

One of the things I like about summer is that it rains slightly less, and when it doesn’t rain for a few days it is warm enough for the standing water to evaporate meaning that dirt-paths become firm and easily passable.  In winter this doesn’t happen as readily, but you can have some fun out on paved roads when a high pressure bubble comes along and gives you a few dry and freezing days.  Even when it does rain in summer it isn’t as bad; I’ve been rained on a few times in the past couple of days and it was still quite pleasant to be out.  On Wednesday I was caught in the rather heavy rain, got soaked through but I wasn’t freezing so I didn’t mind.  My peachy fabric bike-pants dried quickly enough and I was mostly dry already by the time I got home. 

Yesterday I decided to go to the Trafford Centre again (I wanted red shoe polish at about 8:30 pm)  I decided to largely ignore the useless cycling infrastructure discussed previously and ride on the road.  There was little other traffic which made for a nice ride.  The only downside was that what traffic remained was universally speeding.  On the way back it was quite warm.  There was a fine drizzle which was coming down at just the right rate to land on you and evaporate at about the same rate, leaving me feeling refreshed and quite dry.  Riding in the rain can be nice, you just need the right approach.

Road “Safety”

“Many people are unaware that the number of fatalities amongst young people caused by road accidents is higher than deaths from other external causes, including those that receive much more publicity from the media. In 2008, 73 children aged 0 - 11 years were killed on Britain's roads. Another 1,436 were seriously injured. There is a need for all those involved with children to teach clear road safety messages effectively and consistently, working together to help children understand and manage risk.”

Sounds like the sort of crap you’d expect from the AA or RAC or some other motorist lobby, doesn’t it?  Its actually taken from The Department for Transport’s guidance to teachers.  I’m not trying to argue that children should not be taught how to be safe when crossing the road, merely that it is completely missing the point.  The risk is that by extension you absolve the person actually causing the harm, the motorist of their responsibility by placing the idea that it is up to the victim to prevent becoming a victim.

“Be seen at all times, wear bright clothing when during the day & encourage the use of florescent clothing in poor lighting conditions - armbands or reflective strips on school bags.”

This was taken from the Glasgow Council website.

This is the Walking Bus (image taken from site) in the London Borough of Havering.  In order to maintain the prioritising of traffic speed above all else, and to free road users from nuisances like having to take care when driving the council (and many others) have started pushing the idea that this is what kids need in order to safely walk to school.  Surely it would be healthier to look at the cause of their desire to do this rather than merely treat the symptoms?

The problem with this kind of thing is that eventually the news reports change.  Where once you would have read something like this; “The child was crossing the road outside his primary school when he was hit by a Land Rover Discovery,” to this, “The child, who was dressed in dark clothing, was crossing the road outside his primary school when he was hit by a Land Rover Discovery.”  It is a small change but it is placing some of the blame onto the victim (or his parents) for not “being visible,” whilst glossing over the fact that the motorist was negligent by driving such a vehicle outside of a primary school in a manner which left them unable to stop the vehicle in an appropriate amount of time.  Soon maybe half of the kids are dressed up like Christmas trees, they are easier to see from the windscreen perspective and so the average traffic speed increases because the motorists are safe in the knowledge that the kids are easier to see, (so less care needs to be taken) and the kids without the Christmas tree outfit are practically asking to be run over, so they are at least partially responsible, right? 

This is a dangerous way to think, and it has already happened to cyclists with respect to helmets, and partially with respect to bright/fluorescent clothing.  The media will now use the phrase, “who was not wearing a helmet,” quite happily in a report about a cyclist who was clearly the victim of motorist negligence and nothing else.  This perpetuates the myth that the cyclist is partially responsible for the incident by choosing not to wear a helmet (even though it wouldn’t have helped in the slightest) and facilitates further dangerous and negligent behaviour by motorists by suggesting that they are less responsible for the safety of those they may kill with their vehicle.

If you are still not persuaded, compare the pushing of bicycle helmets and high visibility clothing for pedestrians and cyclists to solve the problem of road safety to a problem which kills far fewer in the UK but receives far more media coverage and Police resources; knife crime.  Lets take the Road Safety approach to knife crime; firstly we need knife awareness training in primary schools so that the kids can learn to avoid those areas where knife crime exists.  This could be backed up with a poster campaign or a post-watershed advert series aimed at adults, raining awareness of knife crime and where not to go to avoid being stabbed.  The bad areas where knife crime is rife continue to grow, so the campaign starts to push the idea of stab-vests for all.  Perhaps a catchy “Don’t forget your stab-vest,” advert campaign showing a typical suburban family.  Eventually enough time passes so that when someone without a stab-vest is stabbed to death the phrase, “who was not wearing a stab vest,” would appear in the news stories and the myth that the victim is at least partially responsible for being stabbed for not taking the prescribed precautions begins to gain traction.  Luckily this isn’t the case (yet) although to make the analogy more comparable to the helmet debacle I suppose the stab-vest should be substituted for a set of special magical underpants or something else which would provide no protection in the event of being stabbed.

This is taken from Wigan Council’s website today.  If we keep attacking our social problems like this then maybe we’ll be seeing this tomorrow:

Taken from here.  No its a real thing.  I really think it should also be high-visibility too, and that kippah doesn’t look like it’ll protect his head much when he inevitably gets hit by a motorist.