Gimme a break -- I had the exact same little generator on my Schwinn in 1949. It made it harder to pedal....

LOL! It reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons when Bart engages his bottle nose dynamo of his bike because it\'s getting dark and it all but stops him from moving! :-D

Demon, my sentiments exactly...lol What would be better is some type of generator in the axel, so as not to make it harder to pedal and less wear on the tire.

And this is a \".....stroke of genius\" why, exactly?
Genius would be if the generator was used to power an electric motor driving the bicycle. Now that would be clever..... Still, an \"over-unity\" bike can\'t be that far off...... ;)

Yeah...riding a bike for 20 minutes for 20 KMH (about 12.5 mph) is not really that tough... but with a dynamo attached? Yeah right...I\'m no Lance Armstrong!

Those dynamos had a bad reputation for wearing through the sidewall of the tire and causing blowouts. I\'d consider this more a stroke of ignorance than genius.

This is a gag article....
The worst part of the situation is that these generators were the WORST designed things to generate electricity ever invented - 100W of effort to generate 5W of light.
And all the idiots kept on manufacturing them \"just like that\".
If they had nice free running ball bearings, instead of the one long HUGE shitty and poorly lubricated plain bearing, if they had a decent permanent magnet and fine little field windings on soft iron poles, like a proper AC generator......
But nooooooo the stupids kept on doing the really crappy me too brain dead design and they all did cheap versions of it....
That is why SOME companies made little dynamos\'s from proper components and these things spun like one winged blow flies, and made heaps of power.
I really hate STUPID designs, I hate CHEAP designs and I hate BADLY made cheap and stupid designs..... and I hate the people that make them.
I had a few of these abortions on my bikes when I was a kid and I still resent the pox bottle generator and the people all along the supply chain who make and distribute them.
Allowing for losses etc., it should only take about 12W of power to make 10W of light - but these bottle generators make 5W of light for 100W of power.
Crap.

I wanna put it on my Buddy 50 :)

To catch a rat digging a mountain -- more effort,less profit.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India

There are good and bad dynamos, just as there were a few decades ago. In general dynamo hubs are more reliable and efficient than bottle dynamos, but they do add a little drag even with the lights off.
What has improved hugely is the performance of dynamo powered lights. A modern LED light is much much better than anything available decades ago - they\'ve been getting better and better even over the last few years.