In all its glory...

Schmidt's Original Nabendynamo. My very own SON wheel. Very exciting my friends. A true work of art that works. Well, not mine, not quite yet...

I would be out lighting the canal path right now if weren't for the fact that I am down one dynamo headlight. I ordered on from Peter White, but the model I wanted is out of stock. I really wish they had let me know so I could have ordered a different one. I'm sufficiently anxious to get it going that I probably would have ordered an even more expensive one! Oh well, I know they're busy. Too busy to throw some rim tape on my nice Velocity rim too. That surprised me. At first I thought maybe the Velocity rims don't need rim tape, but that's crazy. Otherwise they would have never invented the Veloplug. So I need one headlight and one rim strip before I can see this thing in action.

I did get my Busch & Müller 4D Lite Plus:

Once again, useless until I get the headlight. Oh well, I'm not riding to work in the dark just yet.

This headlight is really just a temporary fix anyhow. I have designs on a double Cree setup, following the excellent work detailed here. I ordered some junk from Cutter in Australia and a couple of nFlex boards from this dude in California. I'll have to swing by Radioshack and Home Depot to see if I can come up with the remaining supplies. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the whole project, but I'm confident I can get it working. I'll try to document the whole thing in detail here as I go.

Just to make it clear, this wheel is going to do double duty on my recumbent and my winter bike. I have a Bacchetta Giro that I ride most of the year and I just picked up a new winter bike yesterday. I've been riding my full-suspension Trek Y3 the last few years and I'm tired of the suspension sapping me of my strength. So I found a mid-90s Univega Alpina 503 the other day. It's really a pretty nice mountain bike. It has all (low-end) Shimano stuff and some sort of Mavic rims. Anyhow, it'll make a great winter beater once I get the SON hub on there.