Conference noted::bicycle

    Wait a sec here.  I don't see where it says that Cateye's aren't
    allowed.  It says WONDER lights aren't allowed.  It does say
    that a Cateye rear is sufficient.  Also, note that for the 300
    you'll probably only need it for 1 hour (from 4-5am) because 
    you should be able to finish before dark.  For the 400 you'll
    need perhaps an hour before dawn and a unclear amount of time
    afterwards.  Last year the 400 was on a very warm day and it
    significantly slowed people down so that more night riding was
    required.
    
    The problem, of course, if that a front Cateye is damn near
    useless when its really dark out.  I strongly recommend Halogen
    though I don't have a system right now for short duration
    use (I used lantern batteries in a 3rd water bottle cage for
    the very long rides last year).
    
    

    
    	My favorite light system is the Sanyo "Dynapower", for the
    efficiency of the generator.   Comes with a halogen bulb headlight
    and a minimal taillight.
    
    	The Union system has a better headlight and taillight, but the 
    generator causes more friction than the Sanyo does.
    
    	Both have voltage regulators built in, which is a must if you
    don't want to keep on replacing bulbs.   My favorite system is to
    use the Sanyo generator with the union headlight, but this would
    probably put the cost over $50.   For mountain bike lighting, a
    battery is a *must*, since it's impossible to keep the generator
    up to speed on the trails.  For that I use a lantern battery in
    the waterbottle cage, and cover the top of the battery with the
    top half of a waterbottle.   (I suppose I could call it a 
    "watterbottle" now, heh heh...)
    
	    	Alan.

There are [at least] two models of cateye headlights and taillights.
The cheaper model or each has a round lens approx 2.5 inches in diameter.
The taillight is adequate, the headlight is not.  The better model
taillight is great.  The better model headlight gets to the adequate
range.  I used two of them on my tandem and sometimes on my single.
If we were at the head of the pack or screaming along, I'd flip on the
second.  If we were at the back of the pack or climbing hills (same
thing really), I'd shut off the second light.  When we were alone
I would almost always use both.  You can get a pair of these at
Goodale's for about $20 (for one headlight and one tailight).

What I always thought was ridiculous about the brevets was that
a rider would show up to have his light inspected and then go stick
a handlebar bag in front of the headlight or a seatbag behind the tailight
or tie down a jacket so you couldn't see the damned light.

Those yellow sticky dot things that you peel off a card are great but
they and many other things ruin a paint job.  You'll notice that those
tape reflectors are on my aluminum bike and on the backs of my Look
pedals.  Some of the best relfective tape can be bought at auto parts
stores -- the department store types like adap, but don't count on it
they don't stock a lot of it and sometimes it's inferior.  Haggett's
[Bike Shop] in Concord, NH, has some reflective stuff, too.

The Union Halogen hookup is pretty good but prone to failures like shorts.
You can get a bulb and battery for about $20.  You do have to sacrifice
a water bottle cage.  I tried a snazzy rig and blew it.  I got a 2 bottle
handlebar mount (Minoura?), put a cage on one and the lamp on the other.
It fractured.  Would not support the weight of the battery.

Find something you like and field test it.  Make sure you're comfortable
with it or at least know what kinds of failure to expect before the
big ride.

ed

The veteran randonneurs -- not the 40-60 hr guys but the 80 hour ones
-- all carry multiple lighting systems so that they're ready when
things fail.  A light on the handle bars, another on the fork.  For
lighting systems, BMB or PBP is an endurance test.  If you're going
to have a support person/bag/whatever available every 100K or so
you can afford to take a few chances on something breaking.  The PBP
rules required spare bulbs.  They also included penalties hours for
riders caught with defective lighting or dead batteries.

What I especially didn't like was the illegal support vehicles.  You
could not have a support vehicle on the course, but it was okay to accept
help from a random person on the road -- so some of the French riders
seemed to have a lot of help from "random French drivers."  Of course,
I suppose I could have gotten help from any of the American tourists
who just happpened to be in the French hinterlands, stopping along
the way.  Ah well, that's really a topic for a different note.

ed

    Help.  Ok so I am a procrastinator.  Here it a couple of days before
    the 400k and I still haven't found a good lighting system.  Can
    somebody recommend a good lighting system which can be bought somewhere
    between boston and marlborough that won't either weight a ton, cost
    a fortune or use weird parts.  I've found brite lites but I ruled
    them out because they cost a fortune, and they don't use batteries
    you find out on the road.  I figure that for the later rides you
    need a light which uses batteries use you can get at an IGA.
    
    
    If you have an idea, please send mail
    
    AQUA::OCONNOR or GWYNED::OCONNOR
    Thanks in advance
    Joe

< Note 625.5 by AQUA::OCONNOR "The law dont want no gear-gammer" >
                      -< Help the poor procrastinator!!! >-
Joe,

   The Brite Lite uses the same bulbs as any other halogen system, and 
   requires the same voltage, etc.  So if you're pressed into buying that, you 
   would be able to substitute regular 6v batteries bought at the IGA.  You 
   would just need to plan for that possibility and have a way to hook up that 
   battery.  I looked at that one too, and liked the rechargable idea, but not 
   the price.  I've put together (almost) a system similar to Brite Lite that 
   is less expensive and lasts (so I'm told) much longer.  I looked up battery 
   suppliers that sell gel cells in the phone book.  That's the kind of 
   battery Brite Lite uses.  Got one that will drive 5 watts of lights for 9 
   hours per charge! (That's 2 2.4w headlights and a taillight).  Bought the 
   lamps and bulbs (made by Union) at Belmont Wheelworks.  May have cleaned 
   them out, tho.  Went to Radio Shack to get some wire and a variety of 
   connectors to put it all together.  Probably cost $100 total (including a 
   recharger) which is less than the super Brite Lite setup with the same 
   power bulbs and 2x the lighting time.  System weighs less than a similar 
   setup using heavy-duty Dura-cell type 6v batteries.  This system will get a 
   brief test this week, then on to the 300k!

   Good luck, and see you there.

   Kevin

    re. -1
    	OK Kevin....the suspense is killing me.....how did your system
    perform and would you recommend it to a friend?
    
        					Jerry
    

< Note 625.7 by AIMHI::JSMITH "Bikes Spoke_n Here" >
                             -< How did it work? >-

My system worked fine (wish I had).  It seemed a little heavy, and probably 
was compared to what a lot of the other riders were using.  Some just had the 
large rectangular Cateye headlight; others used generator systems.  I'm not 
done with mine yet...haven't found the optimum light location.  I had 2 
headlights mounted from my Scott Clamp-on bars.  That worked ok, I felt I had 
adequate, but not great, illumination of the road.  I'm moving the lights to 
low on the fork blades and think this will light up the road a lot better.  
Haven't yet tried this out.  

As far as recommending it, that depends on how much you're going to use it.  I 
think I'll get into a lot of nighttime riding as my involvment in U-M biking 
grows, and for this the rechargeable system is best (now I can start a 
training ride late in the day and not worry about getting back before dark).  
If your involvement is less, you can probably save money and hassle by using a 
simpler system.

Kevin

    I used the rectangular Cateye lights but don't recommend them.
    The headlamp is inadequate to see where you're going, and the
    cheesy stamped metal mounting bracket for the tail light gouged my
    seat stays.  It is also bad design to have heavy batteries in the lamp
    housing - too easy to jiggle loose. I wanted to do something with the
    Union system but was unable to find the parts in time.

    I'm going to get the Union lights and use a gel-cell battery next.
    You can substitute a more powerful .7 amp bulb in the headlight
    and get more light without the hassle of multiple headlamps, and
    rechargable batteries are widely available; a small one would suffice
    for early AM riding, and a larger one for all-night runs.

    The problem is that I've only seen the system with the stupid
    generator which I don't want.  And I'd like to get extra mounting
    brackets (for the brake bolts) so I can put the lamps on and off
    my bikes, leaving only the small mounting brackets on.

    I also found that the Cateye odometer is not waterproof, it became
    useless for most of the ride, but did come back to life after drying
    out.  I'll use saran wrap over it under those conditions in the future.

    - Jim

< Note 625.9 by CTCADM::ROTH "If you plant ice you'll harvest wind" >
                            -< Cateye lights, etc. >-

I'm using the same cheesy mounts...for now they're all I can find.  I'll 
probably get braze-ons added to my fork blades this winter.

I carried my battery in a bottle cage clamped on under the downtube.  Gets the 
weight real low which seems like the best place.

You can order the Headlamps and replacement bulbs from Performance if Belmont 
Wheelworks is out (they're the only place I found that had parts).

I like the idea of 2 lamps because you may be able to get better light 
distribution and if one blows you should still have the second.  The extra 
weight should be minimal.

What's your source of gel-cells?  Mine is Keystone Battery in Manchester NH.

I've custom made some mounts that bolt onto the stay/fork clamps.  I can easily 
unbolt everything except the stay/fork clamps which I'll leave on.

    One negative result in my experiments with lighting - don't mount
    a light down on the front skewer.

    I mounted a back up light down there on the right thinking it would
    give good close-in lighting to supplement the main light on my bars.

    It's an excellent location for that purpose, but unfortunately there is
    so much road shock that my bulb burned out on almost the first bad bump
    I hit!

    I still favor the idea of two lamps, but will put them both up below the
    bars where there is less vibration.  I used a stainless steel hose clamp
    and a sheet metal widget I bent and cut to size with tin snips to hold
    my top light and it's *excellent*.  To do two lights I'd like to use two
    of those side by side.


	   ---------------
	   \              /
	    \            /  Union headlamp
	     \          /
	      \        /
	       ~~~~~~~~   <-- black plastic mounting frob on back of lamp
		|~~~|
	      =========	  <-- Bolt holds Union lamp housing
	        |~~~| 
	       /     \    <-- Bent sheet metal flange     
	       -------
	-------+-----+---------
	       +     +
	       +     +  Handlebars
	       +     +
	-------+-----+---------
	       +++++++   <-- Stainless steel automotive hose clamp


    I have one problem in that my brake bolts are recessed and too short to
    mount the bracket that comes with the Union lamp, and my silly handlebar
    stem has a "hidden" bolt and no place to attach a lamp there either.

    If you can use the Union bracket they supply it may be a good
    solution - but my system is still easy to take on and off and pretty
    unobtrusive.  Many of the experienced riders thought it looked pretty
    solid.

    Panasonic Gel Cell rechargable batteries (the canonical source for these)
    are available by mail order from DigiKey - a good mail order electronics
    parts supplier that advertises in most electronics magazines.

    Call 800-DIG-IKEY for their catalog; in the back they have the batteries.
    I just order using plastic to pay and UPS to ship - no wasted time.
    They also sell crimp on connectors (I recommend some little polarized ones
    by Amp since the Union lights are grounded to the frame of the bike).

    I'll do come comparitive life testing on these batteries vs dura cells
    and let you know.

    - Jim

    Anyone have any comments on the new Union Generator.  looks just
    like the Sanyo?
    					Jerry

re .11

Don't expect the rechargeables to last as long as the DuraCells.
I think you might get 60-70% life out of them - but of course you
don't have to throw them away.  Also, you should make sure you
run them down to almost nothing and then fully charge them each
time or the life will get shorter and shorter - no-cads have a
"memory".

chris