Lake Fire and Luxos U

I took delivery of a new B&M Luxos U generator light from Peter White on Wednesday so I wanted to do a test ride. The light came with the wrong size spade terminals for my SON 28 generator so I nipped out to Mac's Electronics in San Bernardino which is like a candy store for an old electronics hack like myself. Three dollars got me a bag of the correct spade terminals so I replaced the old ones and wired up the light.

We're in the middle of a heat wave so I decided to ride up Keller Peak road in the evening. The road starts at 6000' and climbs to 7800' in 5.5 miles. It's a great ride if you want short and intense and it's only a few miles from my house. I started at 6:30pm but, much to my surprise, I found myself at the top by 7:30. The top of Keller Peak has a fire lookout tower and I got a great view of the Lake Fire which is currently burning near Jenks Lake and has route 38 closed.

Lake Fire from Keller Peak fire lookout tower 6/18/2015

I killed some time eating a packet of Squinchers which I had bought but I wasn't impressed. They're supposed to be electrolyte energy chews but they only have 90 calories a pack and have a pathetic electrolyte profile (3% RDA sodium and 1% potassium). I won't be buying them again. I can get the same calories by opening my mouth while riding through a cloud of gnats. If only they could genetically engineer black cherry flavored gnats.

Talking of gnats; the bugs were a royal pain on the climb. I have found that if you can hold 7 mph most of the bugs can't keep up. As I was averaging 5.5 mph the little devils swarmed me. I have a mosquito net I use for hiking. I wonder how stupid I'd look if I wore it cycling. I wonder how much I care. My hand is covered in mozzie bites too so perhaps I just need to speed up.

So it wasn't very dark on the way down and I was only able to confirm that the daytime running light works and it charges my GPS system.

I still needed to test the new light in proper dark conditions so I worked late Friday night until 8pm when the temperature had dropped to a balmy 90F down the hill and went for a ride on the upper SART bike path. Several miles out I came across a snake that must have been upward of three feet long sunning itself on the other side of the path, as well as several large lizards at least 6" long. Cool.

It got truly dark around 8:30 and I could see the new light was pretty amazing. Compared to my old Lumotec IQ70 it is brighter and wider. It doesn't have such a smooth beam pattern but it throws a lot of light onto the road. The boost feature is nice too - it uses the capacious internal battery to throw an extra 20 lumen onto the road at the far end of the beam. It makes a difference.

The light I received is slightly different from the light I was expecting. The documentation has not been updated. The old light had a USB port directly in the handlebar switch but my light has a cable coming out of the switch with a floating USB port at the end. I do not like this change. I have aerobars so I can hide the extra cable but if I had regular handlebars I don't know what I would do with it. I'd much rather not have to deal with it at all. It adds nothing that I can see. If your USB cable doesn't reach to the switch buy a longer one. They're cheap and readily available.

Let's look at some of the features of this light.
Stand light: Thanks to the large internal capacitor the stand light is bright and long lasting
Daytime: There is a daytime running light with a flash option (that I haven't got to work yet)
Night time: The beam is bright (70 lumen) and wide and adjusts to push light forward as you speed up. There is a manual boost option to put an extra 20 lumen at the tip of the beam.
Sensor: There is a sensor that detects Day vs. Night and switches accordingly.
USB: There is a USB port that can charge your GPS or cell phone during the day if you are riding more than 15kph. You can charge while using your daytime running lights but not at night.
Beam: The beam is very wide and has a well defined upper edge where most of the light is put, especially if you are riding fast. It's not as clean as the Lumotec around the edge close to the bike.
Controls: There are controls on the back of the light and on the handlebar switch. There is a single button that has a long and a short press that do different things.
Feedback: The feedback on the handlebar switch consists of a red led that indicates USB charging, and a blue led that indicates boost mode. There is no indication that the light is actually on which would have been nice for the daytime running mode.
Hardware: The light came with a crown mount and is well constructed (it's German). There may be issues with water getting up underneath if you ride in the rain without fenders. There are more zip ties and cabling hardware than I know what to do with.
Documentation: The documentation is for the old version of the light and is poorly translated from the original German. However it is more than sufficient for the job.