So anyone who is planning on holding off for a month or so for the new luxos, my advice would be if you cant wait any longer, go out and buy something now with a proven track record, but if you could hold off until say this time next year then the choice should be a lot better.
Thing is, Zero, that Dan and Il Padrone and I all have decent lamps already, so we're not actually hurting for a lamp just to get going. We're not riding in the dark. But if someone is buying his first dynowheel now it is an awful quandary: the good lamps are not cheap disposable items, so does he buy now or does he wait for the possibly better lamps? That is why I offered Jags my old BUMM halogen lamp, which may not be ideal but will at least give him the choice being able to ride with his dynohub wheel while he decides whether to buy what's available, or to wait for the supposedly superduper lamps coming.
The whole thing is complicated by the BUMMSON glee club's entirely unfounded but apparently ineradicable subtext that BUMM makes the best lamps. It doesn't. The first series Cyo was the first BUMM dynamo lamp that was better than merely adequate, and briefly it was the best dyno lamp in the world. But, quite contrary to Dan's casual statement that the second series Luxos will be better, the evidence is that BUMM screwed the pooch conclusively through several loudly touted "improvements" to the Cyo and its workalike sister, the IQ Fly, until now these lamps are visibly inferior to the first series. But here we go again, everyone in a tizzy about the new BUMM lamp, months before it arrives. I've learned my lesson; I'm not giving BUMM my money until I see independent shots of the light throw.
I would also say this. The BUMMSON glee club sang hallelujahs when the D'Lumotec halogen BUMM appeared. It was a rubbish lamp, marginally good enough to be seen, not good enough to see by. So it was better than the rubbish that went before; so what? Better than the rubbish before doesn't equal good enough. Good enough is a fixed standard.
Now the first series Cyo was in fact good enough. It was -- is, because it's lifespan is 50k hours, so it will be around a long time on the second-hand market! -- a lamp
better than the 6V lamps they used to have on cars within living memory, on VW Beetles until very late. It's an important landmark, a breakpoint in bicycle lamps. It's buttery smooth, it has plenty of light, it cuts off flat and doesn't irritate drivers, and it has only two faults (not sufficiently water resistant to use on mudguardless bikes, not enough sidethrow for narrow and rough roads).
And then BUMM messed with success...
Any BUMM lamp that follows can only be better than the first series Cyo by throwing
more light. With the addional light comes the problem of controlling it, so that it doesn't act as a beacon aiming motorists directly at you, a pathfinder for the accident you're about to become. The only way the Luxos can improve on the first Cyo in a practical way is to be a) perfectly waterproof and b) use some of the extra lumens to light up the road to the sides. The current information is that BUMM with their railroad vision haven't done either of those things. They have just thrown the more light further up the road.
Frankly, I'm of the opinion that anyone who now holds off buying a necessary lamp to wait for the Luxos is a fashion victim.
If you take care not to be caught in the trap of the subsequent Cyo/Fly series with first the daylight running extra LEDs, and the hotspot (aaargh!), there are really good lamps available at a third of what even the base model BUMM Luxos will cost.
Let me list them.
• First series Cyo 40 Lux with Reflector, still available in shops, and likely to be available secondhand for years
• First series Cyo 60 Lux, inferior to the 40 Lux unless you ride only on good roads, and no better for them than the 40 Lux, but the sporting set likes big numbers
• Philips Saferide, made by people who always have their minds in gear, in many ways a superior lamp to the Cyo (waterproof, designed with due regard for what you ride beside), but most places more expensive because it isn't so generally discounted. See
http://www.philips.co.uk/c/bicycle%20bulbs/283657/cat/ -- many more models available via German Ebay. I might go for this one next if the hotspot on my IQ Fly-E becomes too irritating. I should have chosen it first... except I believed the misleading BUMM publicity photographs.
• Axa Nano -- you can get a description of the models on this board, where it has experienced fans. Available with USB charger built in, right NOW, which to my mind removes the slightest reason to wait for the Luxos.
Andre "The Enlightened" Jute
