Yesterday was a three legged test ride. We went out in the dark to Richmond Park in London around the “off road bit”, well the walking path.
Part I : As you know I got the SuperNova E3 but I haven’t really tested the light, a bit hard in central London. Too bad last night we had a bit of cloud cover which did give a bit of glare in the park. So I think that I could cycle around the “yellow brick road” without any light. Though I would probably not be going too fast or have spotted the man walking his dog, without the light. But it was dark enough to give a good idea how this light would work in pitch black. The SuperNova gives a very good cover and the colour warmth is spot on for me. So I can look into the light and not be total blinded when looking outside the light glare. I like the idea of being able to see what is going on around me. So still top marks for this light.
Part II : I also invested in the SuperNova rear light. Not that I could see it while riding, but …

I tried out the Dinotte 600L light this summer and it was just too bright, the reflection of the road was like looking at the light of an oncoming car, even at a medium setting!!! And other lights I looked at looked a bit “flimsy” and couldn’t easily be detached.

I fettled a bit tonight and created light.
I had some old front lights and rear lights that for various reasons didn’t work anymore. The Cateye for example had some leaked batteries in it so the terminals needed to be cleaned, which is hard when the Cateye is welded together.

So armed with this little diagram, thanks Bo, I went over to Maplin to get some bits and bobs.

Since I have lend out my soldering iron to a friend of mine and pretty much only have tools for mending a bicycle, the project soon became interesting. Drilling was done with a phillips screwdriver and soldering was a couple twist with the wires and black electric tape. And I cased it all into a older inner tube.

But since this was a just a test to see if it would be possible, I didn’t mind it.
Though soon after starting the project it hit me, batteries is DC and the Schmidt SON dyno hub is AC, doh, but the light still works though they blink rather a lot :) I haven’t had the time to test it out fully yet to see if the capacitor stores light and how fast it charges up.

My review of the Surly LHT