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WHS' bicycle stuff: component reviews & more

lightbeam theoretical by WHS Philips SLD beamshot Herrmans H-track handheld

Plans to produce some specific bicycle components

Plans: My house was sold early June, in July/August I had a look at houses in Poland and after that I travelled to Ukraine also to look for houses. I visited a business in Poland, wanted to do the same in UA but the velomobile maker there left UA so need to think of something else. I will keep a business address in the Netherlands, but I intend to make bike products, possibly in cooperation with manufacturers from these countries, and working with 2 friends from Poland and from Taiwan.

The preparations were delayed because of distractions related to the insane psychopath Putin who decided to commit more war crimes. I will in any case continue with these ideas, and describe some of them later after the initial product developments have been done. What I also want to do is to see what can be done in Ukraine. I'm thinking "help yourself by helping others" for people there, giving them say tools to fix/rebuild houses, in a amish barn raising style cooperation. Perhaps it won't work well, but I will see.

Overviews of my review pages

  • 2020-11-10: Bicycle lighting: Guide to the reviews and analysis
    If you are new to my pages and want to get a quick guide on what is important in lighting and dynamos, read this page.
    Update 2021-4-7: Bicycle brands vs. torch brands (mainly for battery powered bicycle lights),
    Update 2021-5-25: Addition of the importance of awareness on how to judge beamshots and reviews and that beamshots are not enough to tell which light is the best.

Reviews and analysis of bicycle components

Analysis of bicycle lighting

  • Bicycle lighting analysis 2022-2-9: Test in heavy fog I did a test in heavy fog (visibility ca. 20-25m irrespective of what light I used) recently which showed one of the few times high CRI is noticeably better than low CRI. Also I describe something else that became clear only in such dense fog (which is quite rare): A 2nd wall of (white) light phenomenon for non-cutoff lights was apparent, which is not a wall that impairs your vision but a white wall that denotes the end of your vision, i.e. that aligns approximately with how far you can see. See: Test in very dense fog: high CRI 4000K vs. low CRI ca. 4200K-4500K and low CRI cool white.
    The analysis needed to understand what is good, bad, and what is needed in bicycle lamps and dynamos along with all descriptions of experiments that I did, such as LED light colour, effectiveness of lamps in the mist, difference between what you see in reality and beamshots, analysis of lighting regulations such as the German StVZO, and much more. This is my personal interest, from which came later some of the work that I do but both are independent.

    For companies: I can provide a translation in English + analysis, summaries, build suggestions, description of the approval procedure, also analysis of other standards used in/with TA, if interested email me here.

Reviews

  • Bicycle lighting reviews
    Headlamps, taillamps, dynamos and some oddities (non standard lights/generators)
    Notice 2022-7-7: Bike taillamp wall shots: I need to find another area to do these as I need almost a room to make such shots and I don't have an empty room where I stay now (temporarily) after selling my house. So I'm not yet sure when I can make such wall shots again. I have a few taillamps of which I need to make wall shots: Nean brake taillamp, Büchel Wing and Contec TL-135
    Update 2022-6-24: Experiences with the SONdelux dynamo hub which confirm my estimates and the experiences of others: Strong vibrations with light on and off!
    Update: Using a TL-DH10 to open a Shimano T8000 dynamo hub.
    Update 2021-7-6: Further experiences with the Spinup F12W pro, and more on the options to mount it (left/right hand side, front/back side of the fork).
  • Leather saddles: Brooks, Lepper, Selle Amatomica
    Reviews, analysis, experiments with cutouts. To come Oct-Nov 2022: Review (initial) of the Selle Anatomica H2. The main issue after seeing how well it works is obviously how much it stretches as that remians one of the biggest complaints with Selle Anatomica saddles.... I have looked at buying pieces of leather so I can experiment with this sadle with different tops and especially a wider section of leather at the front.
  • Mini pumps
    Read here what pressure you can really achieve, not the fairy tale numbers that most manufacturers tell you which are only relevant if your name is Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Smaller scale reviews

  • For an overview with descriptions and the latest updates see: Tests part 2: Less extensive tests, these comprise:
    Bicycle bells, grips, gears, bike computers, water bottles, chain checkers, kickstands, pedals, tyre levers). and more.

    To come:

    • Notice 2022-7-7: I've been using the replacements for the MSX bike bags for about a year. They are bigger which has been useful, the mount is ok, but could do with an improvement. I will give an update and show everything about them with pics after my trip to Poland/Ukraine, so likely August 2022. I also bought a 2nd pair of bags from a Canadian manufacturer for on the 2nd touring/test bike. I will compare them and show the issues with all bags I used, and their mounting systems in that update.
    • Notice 2022-7-7: Bottle cages. Another comparison that needs to be done. I've used quite a few over the years: Salsa stainless (bad workmanship/ugly welds etc. made me leave it on a bike that I sold), Elite Ciussi stainless, old 1990s style aluminium cage, Elite Moreo stainless, King cage Iris (stainless steel tubing). I'd like to get my hands on the Wolf tooth morse stainless cages for my Cannondale touring to give better placement for large bottles on the smallish size M frame (I prefer smaller frames so the top tube isn't very long as I don't like a stretched riding position). I only see the titanium versions for sale at the moment and these are just too expensive to justify esp. as I'm not a weight weenie.
    • Notice 2022-7-7: Bicycle frame locks, issues with hitting the lock (esp. the key and the knob) with your heels. Bad: Abus (knob sticks out), good: Axa Victory and Trelock RS453 if you take the versions with always removable key. More to come at the same time as the updates above.

    Some interesting updates of these sections:

  • Full list of these tests:

    And something else, not a specific test but a test of various devices, lights, under various circumstances, on a bike trip from NL to Germany (to Leipzig), and back again:

    Saddle modifications

    I don't sell Brooks saddles nor modified Brooks saddles any more due to the distributor that I used stopping to stock Brooks saddles, but I can modify saddles you have. There may be customs issues from outside the EU, sending saddles back and forth generally means customs/VAT duty, but within the EU there is only the issue of postage cost. See this page for the costs:Saddle modifications. I may sell Berthoud saddles, everything got delayed in deciding and trying them out, I will do that March/April 2022 finally, once my house is sold.

    As an alternative I'm offering to modify saddles you have already, or templates + instructions for DIY with which you can support my site. See Saddle modifications: DIY or to your supplied saddles.. I am working on a HTML+PDF of a complete guide to saddle modifications. Email what modification you want and I will add that part if that part isn't finished yet.

    plans for 2022

    • Interview with a pedelec/s-pedelec maker that has some innovative features. If all goes well I could visit them too. More information once this process gets started. This is another maker than I wanted to visit in 2018 which fell through along with much more. I may visit them too this summer.
    • Buying a few bike trailers for testing/analysis. I'm thinking about the Wike and Carry freedom.
    • Information on bike trailers for travelling.
    • Finally converting a bike to use a geared hub, likely the Kindernay.
    • Testing/comparing different spoke rulers and spoke spanners, comparing the measurements of used spokes, and fit of nipple spanners on various brands of nipples, new (I have a bunch of boxes of Alpina and Sapim) and old ones (various other brands). The idea came after trying to measure the spoke of a rear wheel of a relative's bike that was damaged, I used a new rim + ca. 7 new spokes/nipples. The bike shop had a different measurement of 300mm vs. 298mm with my DT swiss aluminium spoke length ruler, why is that? I will go into that and try out a few others.
    • ...

    Updates

    Here are the updates from the large and smaller review sections and other sections including some from the travel section where they may be of interest such as thermos bottles, combined, in the style of the update list I use on several of my pages already (such as on the main page of the bicycle lighting reviews):

    • TRAVEL: 2022-11-24: Thermal properties: What does it mean if a bottle is said to keep drink hot for x hours? The limit for what is hot seems to be set to 65 degrees by various manufacturers, which is too low for me for tea, but from that we can calculate at what duration the water temperature will drop below, say, 80 degrees. See Thermal calculations from manufacturers' specifications.
    • TRAVEL: 2022-11-12: Addition, 2022, Thermos King 1.2l bottle: loss of thermal properties.
    • 2022-6-22: NEW update of the page on the SONdelux hub dynamo, as I finally tried one out myself. The result is not positive and confirms my estimations and confirms the experiences of people who emailed me about vibrations that this dynamo hubs gives...
    • 2022-6-22: NEW Some short topics: 2. Is there more anti-social behaviour towards cyclists in other countries than NL?
    • 2022-6-21: NEW Some short topics: 1. What speed can you reach in cities with pedelecs and bicycles, and are pedelecs worth it?
    • 2022-4-6: Test started of the Lumintop B01 bike light with neutral white XPL LED, 21700 battery, a fairly unsharp cutoff, but reasonably good to use anyway and it puts out a lot of light, and it is quite useful even on wet roads as today because of the light colour (ca. 4500K?), which is a lot better than the 1st version of the Herrmans H-one S with cool white light which is also mounted on the bicycle that I used for testing.
    • 2022-4-6: I finally updated the page on the Xanes SLF-01 bike light (from banggood.com). I finally updated it with the problem that I encountered almost at the start and which resulted in giving it away, which is the poor motion sensor that never activates and means the light switches off after a few minutes of riding. For my intended purpose as a light weight additional light to take on trips to mount on rental bicycles, I didn't want to use it.
    • 2022-3-14: Forgot to upload this long ago already: Last year I used the H-one S again on a relative's bike. It was outside a lot and suddenly it became very dim. Cause: Corroded DRL LED feet. The corrosion came in contact with the power transistors and that was enough to make it go very dim. See here
    • 2022-2-28: In progress: reviews of the Büchel Wing taillamp and the Nean brake taillamp.
    • 2022-2-24: I contacted German manufacturer Büchel about their taillamp "Wing" and asked a bit about their new headlamps such as the Shiny 80; see the lighting section for more details.
    • 2021-12-8: Addition after a comment by a reader about lateral movement of a saddle with springs on what makes the springs give comfort.
    • 2021-11-13: Floor pumps: SKS promptly sent a replacement head and just replacing the head section (not the part that goes into the tube nor the orange end-screw) fixed the issue already so the pumpheads had an issue, not the 2 sections + seals that screw into/onto the hose. Note that I swapped the pump heads between the 2 defective pump heads/hoses, and that didn't work, so this shows that of the first 2 pump heads+hoses the pump heads themselves leaked air.
    • 2021-11-5: Pedals: Short review of some old pedals: VP 192 (city bike pedals).
    • 2021-10-29: Pedals: Short review of the pedals I've been using the last 2 years: Union SP-2160 (cage pedals)
    • 2021-10-29: Floor pumps: A few days ago I got a response from SKS about the EVA head, they will send me a replacement and then we will see if the same issue occurs in which case it could mean a faulty batch.
    • 2021-10-29: Pedals: How to disassemble pedals.
    • 2021-10-29: Pedals: Short review of some old pedals: VP 191 (city bike pedals).
    • 2021-10-21: Pedals: Update on testing the Shimano PD-EF205, on click pedals being more useful for velomobiles and recuments, and on a few other platform pedal types that I may try.
    • 2021-10-21: Floor pumps: Link to the pressure gauge deviation results on the hand pump page, some more long term comments about the 2 tested pumps, and a new SKS hose with EVA pump head that I bought which leaks air. Bike-discount sent a replacement that also leaks air. Then I emailed SKS, no response so far, hmm...

    This site (well, the bicycle review section), how I will update it

    I will from 2020 on only review what I intend to use myself, so in particular I will not test most dynamo lighting that is new:
    1. For dynamo lighting there is just about no progress in 10 years, there is barely any interest from manufacturers to make bike lamps 'great'.
    2. There are other interesting things I could test and analyse related to bicycles but too few people are interested in proper reviews, they want 'entertainment' reviews.

    The only way this could change is by getting paid for it in some way. But on youtube there seems very little interest in proper reviews, people want to read and see superficial rubbish, entertainment style reviews. Youtube definitely promotes superficial crap and clickbait to get money for themselves. All in all this makes me feel along with all the deplatforming (regardless of whether I agree or disagree with people, free speech is needed), it is probably better to quit my channel (WHS reviews) as well unless there come a lot more subscribers, comments, etc. to make it interesting/worthwhile despite the issues there.

    If you are interested in making me change my mind, and to support my reviews, subscribe to my youtube channel (WHS reviews and comment there.

    My other youtube channel used to have some bicycle content but since August 2018 is only about critical analysis of events/situations and the people responsible for them (some of those will be bicycle related). I will expand this channel as part of projects 2 and 3 below...

    Other pages on my site that you may find interesting, and projects (that I've been working on instead of on bicycle stuff)

    • My travel pages (to Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia) I apply the same principles of analysis here as with anything I do, i.e. question assumptions and find the real reasons why things happen. You may find these travel experiences interesting for this reason already (such as for a psychological analyis of why people do or say certain things)...
    • A critical look at reviews and human behaviour I explain why people behave as they do on forums, reading (and then responding to) reviews, etc. This is a prelude to my project to explain everything in life, in which I show how to understand anyone, and how to properly analyse. [ See further on this page for a longer summary ]
    • The answers to life the universe and everything I look at certain questions in life in a different way from how it's normally done and so explain issues in society and I show how to understand anyone, and how to properly analyse. [ See further on this page for a longer summary ]

    Life the universe and everything

    The folowing 3 projects are related. Soon to be published. Based on experiences over many years, that I analysed and saw connections that explain just about everything:
    1. I've been working on a project about the different thinking of men/women, humour, life the universe and everything (It's not 42! ;-)).
    2. A project to counter manipulation. I became more and more annoyed with people manipulating others, and then I saw connections of structures in society and a certain type of people in business and politics, I explain what psychologists and sociologists don't understand, and I correct various of their views on how and why people behave in a certain way. You may have seen already on this site my analysis of issues that I encountered esp. on forums with certain type of people who manipulate others, and in this project I do a far more comprehensive analysis resulting in a list of things that need to change in society.
    3. A project to explain the current state of western society with an analysis of the real problems, not the simplisitic view of some perceived problems such as 'cultural marxism' which just isn't all there is to it at all. The reason why this happened (and where/when lie the origins) is something nobody seems to properly understand. The real origins are 2-fold, one of these is an important way western societies work which was a requirement for this process to get a foothold in society. It got really bad in 2019, it was the year that insanity got normalised, but why did all this happen? Psychologists don't properly understand (as usual), but I can analyse it all by proper reasoning and proper understanding of the basis of society, and using my ability to emulate other people's thinking. As in book 2 I present the solution of what is needed to make this stupidity go away, and that is related to the requirements I present in that book.

    4. I've worked with a friend a bit on his project of an easy to use and low cost package delivery solution using other carriers. See https://shippinglix.com

    5. I'm working on other ideas and projects, I will tell more on this when the time is right.

    Determining the truth and doing proper analysis is a big part of reviews

    For this reason I made some pages dealing with what I ecountered in how people behave to manipulate others, or in how they simply write BS that wastes your time.

    Countering bullshit on forums, newsgroups and from other websites

    Support this website! [ for more critical reviews ]

    If you are interested in making me change my mind and continue reviewing, then support my reviews: subscribe to my youtube review channel "WHS reviews" and comment there.

    If you have other ideas/suggestions to continue, send me a message. One idea I had but it is likely not of that much general interest, is a series of videos on the StVZO rules, what is good and bad about them, how deviations from the rules are allowed etc. I could even publish my entire StVZO analysis if there are enough donations (but that would require a lot of donations as it would mean not being able to use that as a large part of the value of the service I provide to get companies to make compliant lighting/e-scooters).
    In case there is interest in a subscription type service, to say, buy more bike lamps or more types of the latest dynamos, or even saddle types that could be interesting to try out, to compare with the leather saddles I tried out. If you want to support in this way, spread the word on this (send links to people who may be interested to my youtube channel or my website), and have a look here: https://www.subscribestar.com/whs-bike-reviews.

    [ Note: I deleted patreon as it is part of the problem of removal of free speech by deplatforming people. The importance of free speech is related to finding the truth, as I will explain in my upcoming project soon. They also gave the terrorist organisation BLM a donation, which is an organisation similar to all complainers and whiners about western society: Trying to destroy society and its achievements and revising the truth to untruth. ESAD to BLM! ]

    If there is enough support I could do e.g. a comparative review of all of Berthoud's leather saddles with the best of the Brooks saddles (esp. the B17 and Imperial, Team pro) and with bicycle lighting there are ways to go such as finally make full comparison videos with switching between lamps while riding to show the differences, and of course some more of the latest headlamps and pedelec lamps.

    Contact/email about my reviews

    Copyright

    All pictures and text made by me, except: 1. Some stock product photos, those with a pure white background (should be clear when you see them) which come from websites of manufacturers or distributors. 2. A few other types of pictures I got from a forum, manufacturer's website or from readers who sent some pictures, which I note in the text accompanying such pictures, along with a link to the original site where relevant.

    If you want to use any of my stuff, for non commercial purposes, that is fine if you mention that you got it from my site... (and send me an email about it)

My test bike was stolen Thursday evening 9 Aug. 2018, in NL/Leimuiden. If you see it in NL let the police know and send me a message...

Maybe it's on the way to Poland, or some such destination, but in case it stays in NL, if you see it let the police know and send me a message...

Nederlands: Cannondale fiets, type Vintage, zwart, schijfremmen, Dit is mijn testfiets, opvallend door 2 verschillende pedalen voor testen, dito 2 verschillende handvatten, 3x9 versnellingen, bijna alles is zwart, zadelpen: Descendant, zadel: Brooks b17 imperial (uitsparing in het midden) zwart, linker handvat kurk, rechter handvat leer bruin, fietscomputer: O-synce, achterdrager vervangen: was Cannondale's eigen merk (maar die was gebroken), is nu Atranvelo, Stuureinden van Ergotec, ligstuur (alleen de arm-steunen) van Ergotec, koplamp: Herrmans H-one S (met plakband waarop V2 geschreven staat, dit is de versie met neutraal wit licht), achterlamp Spanninga Solo. Continental achterband, voorband is een Compass Barlow pass 38mm vouwband (door een lezer van mijn site gestuurd om te testen/vergelijken)

English: Cannondale bicycle, type Vintage, zwart, disc brakes. This is my test bike used the last 2 years for testing lighting and pedals and grips etc. And so it sticks out by having 2 different pedals for testing, ditto 2 different grips, left grip cork, right grip leather (brown), 3x9 gears, almost everything is black, seat post: Descendant (contrary to the pics), saddle: Brooks b17 Imperial (so with cutout in the middle) in black, bike computer: O-synce, rear rack: Atranvelo (I had to replace the original rack which was Cannondale's own brand, which broke), bar ends from Ergotec, aero bar (but only the arm rests mounted) from Ergotec, headlamps: Herrmans H-one S (with tape on which I wrote V2, this is the 2nd version of the H-one S with neutral white light), taillamp Spanninga Solo. Continental rear tyre 42-622, front tyre is a Compass Barlow pass 38mm folding tyre (sent to me for testing by a reader of my site)

Numbers on the frame: 57 1 086.128 (so: 571086128) / UN...571 (can't quite make it out)

Pics:
20161104_153242.jpg 20161104_153308.jpg 20180627_163856.jpg 20180627_170455.jpg Screenshot_2018-08-10-09-17-12.jpg Screenshot_2018-08-10-09-21-14.jpg


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