In the morning I rode out for work at 6:30 AM. It was still dark. It’s about 5 miles (8km) to work in Downtown Minneapolis. The routes in my neck of the woods consist entirely of regular city streets, so the quality of street lighting varies. Under the many rail bridges of Northeast there is rarely a single light, and Monroe can be so poorly illuminated at points that I can only see what’s lit by my bike. Once I hit the Hennepin Ave bridge to cross the Mississippi the situation is better. I am lucky that my current job has a secure facility to store my bike- the first one I’ve ever had access to. Every other job I’ve had has required me to lock my bike up on a rack or a street sign, in whatever kind of weather.
On this particular day I headed out at 3:50 PM to get to therapy, 5 miles again to the Prospect Park neighborhood. It may be a University facility but there is no proper bike parking, so I lock up to a sign. It is 6 PM when I depart. It’s the golden hour, and as I look northwest the skyline is backlit with reds, pinks, and oranges. Tonight I’m not heading straight home, but will be meeting my spouse and some friends to see Dune 2 at St. Anthony Main. I know it’s a long movie so on the way to the theatre I stop for a quick bite to eat in Dinkytown 2.5 miles (4km) from where I am. The corner of 15th Ave SE and 4th St has recently been reconstructed for a new development, and there is no designated bike parking again, so I dutifully lock to a street sign (Side note: This is why I love a chain lock. It’s heavy as a brick but it can wrap around things a U lock cannot). By the time I’m out, which is only about 30 minutes later, the sun has fully set and it is dark.
Copyright 2006 Mark Vancleave, Minneapolis, MN, USA
The theatre is 1.5 miles (2.5km) from where I ate, and the entire route is poorly lit. Beginning this year the streets around here are supposed to be reconstructed, and I hope that better lighting is included with the cycling infra. Thankfully there are several new bike racks at the theatre. I lock up just outside the door, in front of the historic bar where I used to meet with friends to drink British ales, dressed in tweed, as we talked about philosophy and theology. The movie is, as you know, nearly three hours long, so it’s close to 10 PM when we empty out to the brick sidewalk. The 3.5 mile (5.6km) ride home is through the streets of Northeast, as poorly lit as my ride into work almost 15 hours earlier in the day. I’m a bit tired, but I’ve lived here for 20 years. I am comfortable on these streets.
This is a pretty normal day for any of us. These are the kinds of things we do and the types of places we go. All in all I rode about 17.5 miles (28km), spread out over the course of the whole day. Some rides were when it was dark, one was in the early afternoon, and one was at sunset. Part of the day my bike was parked in a secure facility, and part of it was in random public spaces, in several different neighborhoods. It was early Spring weather with lows around 32f (0c) and a high around 42f (6c). At the bookends of the day I needed my lights, they couldn’t have gone out on the way home if I wanted to be safe. This is normal transportation cycling in my neck of the woods.
In a recent Q&A, Russ over at Pathlesspedaled fielded the question: “Do I need dynamo lights?” For the kinds of riding he does, he said no. Just bring an extra battery pack if you’re worried about anything. He also said something about dynamo being “heavy,” which did make me chuckle a little bit. And in an even more recent video about living car free in Spain he shared the lights he’s been using these days. They’ve got a run time of between 3 and 35 hours(??) and the company encourages you to “bring extra batteries on your commute” so that you’ll be sure always to have light when you need it.
I am not here going to go into the different beam shapes of a good dynamo vs a battery light, though that’s important. Since this series of posts is about the distinctive features of transportation cycling verses recreational cycling, I want only to focus on how different designs and builds facilitate better or worse experiences in the different modes.
In a former post I talked about how I use my saddlebag to make it nearly impossible for me to forget my lock, and to have basic tools on hand at all times. Based on the reports of others, and in my own experience, it can be easy to forget to bring a lock. Now let’s add lights to the mix. But not just the lights; we’re gonna need extra batteries, and we’re going to need chargers. Chargers plural, as it is extremely rare to find rear lights that charge with a USBC cable. We’ll need a micro-USB for that one. The nicer front lights these days do use USBC. I will need to check and make sure that I have two lights, two chargers, and a battery or two every morning before heading out. I will need at a certain point in the day to check battery levels, lest I run out of battery in the middle of the ride home.
If I’m paying $100 for my front light, I’m most likely going to want to bring the light in with me at stops where I would be away from the bike for more than an hour. On the day above that would be three times that I grab my lights and put them in my bag or pockets after locking up. The lights might be wet, they might be dirty, but I don’t want anyone to take my hundred dollar light. Moving batteries from freezing temps to indoor temps multiple times in a day will naturally drain them as well. So it’s good I have the backup batteries!
On the weekends, or some evenings when I’m in the mood, I have a 20 mile (32km) loop I like to ride. I usually give myself a couple hours to do it so I can take a short break at the Minnehaha Creek, which is the midpoint of the ride. If I am doing it leisurely and stop for a capp, or a lunch, or some time at a bookstore, it could take as long as 4 hours. If I’m feeling it I’ll skip the break and get the whole thing done about an 1 hour and 20 minutes. This is an altogether different kind of ride. If I’m doing a weekend ride that can take 1.5-4 hours, unless I have specific plans later in the day, I’m not going to head out while it’s dark. If I’m going on a gravel ride, or if I’m going to review a bike, my ride will begin and end when it’s light outside, and since it’s a ride I’ll do once or twice a week I won’t have the same kinds of needs if my day looked like work, therapy, dinner, and a movie spread out over 15 hours.
This is what I mean when I talk about the differences between transportation and recreational cycling. Given the cost of a custom front wheel, and given the actual needs of most recreational rides, it makes sense that most people in this country are perfectly content with battery lights. Since in America, the predominant mode of cycling is recreational, dynamo light systems seem like overkill. What is available is limited significantly by this reality.
Though the overall distance traveled in a day is roughly the same, there really is no question that transportation cycling is significantly more intensive in what it asks of its equipment. The key factor is that it is daily. The inherent complications of battery lights are magnified when it must be done every day. Dynamo lights are permanently fixed to the bike, and so cannot be forgotten, and do not need to be mounted and taken off throughout the day. They do not need to be charged and so one does not need to both remember and bring multiple chargers and batteries every day. They will work in below freezing temperatures without losing power faster. They provide a broader, directed beam that won’t impair the vision of drivers or other riders, not only on account of the downward direction, but because – and thank God for this – they don’t have a blinking function. In the year of our Lord 2024 I simply cannot believe that people are still out here using blinkers.
The relative unavailability and unaffordability of dynamo lighting systems in the US is directly related to the dominance of recreational cycling. It is one of the ways that the bikes that are designed for us, and the builds available, are artificially limited by a cycling culture that puts performance on a pedestal, or rather a podium.
The Complete Bicycle 
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