summer is over, fall has begun, and in a couple of weeks we go back to where you need a flashlight to find your way out of bed in the morning.
in terms of sports things look glum, too, because by the time you get back home its too damn dark to find your way round the local woods. i could of course let things go their own way and grow an even more enormous belly during the winter months, but i had a different idea and brought a little something from my last trip to chicago.
a night-sun bike lamp. there are several of this sort on the market, you could spend anything between 100 and 800 eur. this one is closer to the lower end of the spectrum, but still has a very powerful light source: the one on the right is a halogen lamp, working as a high beam, while the one on the left is a high intensity discharge (hid) lamp – with the annoying kind of blue light everyone hates on modern cars – as flood light.
nice, light and small.
the system works with a 30 watt-hour ni-cd battery fit in a waterbottle (see below).
for normal riding, e.g. uphill or on flat roads, the hid alone is ok, for downhill it is a good idea to switch on the 20 watt spot halogen light as well.
below on the left is hid only, the right is hid + halogen.
the battery should be good for 2.5 hours, but i have not done so much yet; i usually only go for an hour in the evening, and a little longer in the weekends during the day.
one problem still remains: we got 2 bikes, only one light, and i am much faster downhill than kris …