Replaced the front brake on the XO. When wet I’m having a hell of a time trying to stop on non-machined sidewalls – pimp as they may look. This is the strongest front canti-brake I could find, with the stickiest pads I could get, using V-brake pads for extra surface area. I hope this does the trick.
I also think the red anno looks pretty dope against the purple anno rims. Yeah sploosh.
I also fabricated a light bracket from a cut down center-pull brake arm. This wasn’t my idea – I saw it elsewhere on Flickr and decided to give it a go since I had an old crappy centerpull laying around. I didn’t do a fancy job on any of it – wires are everywhere and the bracket is still pretty rough – I just wanted to futz around with this before I button it all down.
Also, hello! Dynamo! The project progresses! First impressions are great. I don’t know if I like this lamp specifically, but I like that the hub produces almost no noticeable resistance and that, you know… Light!
Alex lent me this lamp to play around with. I’m still formulating my opinions and questions about shaped light shapes and whatnots. Will probably post about that later somewhere. Am waiting on a lamp that’s on order before I clean it all up.
You can click on the pics for more in the set if interested.
Onward.
the iq and edelux are setup with asymmetrical beams, with a nice cut off. benefit – throws light on the road where you need it, and presumably not up in driver’s eyes.
but, for trail / singletrack / twisty dirt road riding way out back of nowhere – i’d opt for a supernova triple paired with a SON hub. more light, wider spread to peak around corners, etc.
love my edelux and SON hub on my rando machine. would use it on my fargo for dirt road / road riding – but would upgrade for something to use in the woods.
That sounds like good advice, and the direction my conclusions have been taking me.
That hub I have pictured there an SP PD-8 dynamo. It’s new – presumably it’s lighter than the SON and puts out 3w/6v whereas the SON puts out 2.4w/6v. It was also only $125+ shipping! I have high hopes for it.
The only thing that I hesitate about the E3 is that presumably it’s quite heavy. I don’t mean that in a weight weenie way, I mean that in a ‘heavy thing on the end of a mounting arm’ kind of way.
i’ve heard good things about the shimano. might go that way due to $$.
supernova makes some nice mounting hardware. guess it depends on where you want to put it… i have my edelux mounted to my fork blade (use to live on a mark’s rack). as i’m pretty short, i’ll likely not have room under a bar bag for a light, so i’ll use a terracycle mount off the fork blade to mount it.
Yeah, I’m kind of divided on the horizontal cutoff, too (on my IQ CYO). I love that I can throw out that much light and not blind people, but when the path dips down all of a sudden my lights are shining at the ground instead of where I need them to be.
Combine that with the fact that they’re bright enough to actually kill your night vision (where duller lights still leave you some night vision to work with -probably using the wrong terms but you know what I mean.) -and I wonder if I shouldn’t say f-it to blinding others, or try to figure out a high beam/low beam set up.
I swear Jimmy, we are like two horses in harness sometimes.