[HAMR] Tommy Godwin's lights

[Peter]

I apologise if this has already been dealt with but looking at the extent of battery charging and devices involved in Steve's ride and following the excellent article by AndyC in Jan 28th, I wonder what Mr Godwin did.  I know traffic was much less but so were streetlights and I bet bike lights were next to useless.  He must have done about the same amount of night-riding as Steve.  Does anyone know how he managed lighting?

Peter

Edit:  I've just seen on another site that he used a hub dynamo (they show a picture of a bottle dynamo, though a picture of his bike shows the hub one).  I wonder how reliable it was.

[jsabine]

Would it still have been carbide lamps in '39?

Mind you, I think I've seen a reference somewhere to him putting tape over his lights once the blackout started, which would suggest something that puts out a little less heat.

[Peter]

Sorry, John, I was doing my edit as you posted!

This is the site I was looking at - it's fascinating:-

http://www.tommygodwin.com/


It's also interesting (to me, at any rate!) that Tommy was a teetotal vegetarian in comparison with Steve who is sausage-powered!

Peter

[jsabine]

And of course, I've seen the reference to a hub dynamo too, just have a poor memory ...

[Exit Stage Left]

The dynohub was in its second stage of development in 1938.



Sturmey Archer advertising featuring Godwin centred around the 4 speed gear.

[Ningishzidda]

http://www.tommygodwin.com/

Blurb says he used a Dynohub, but I wouldn't doubt he carried a battery lamp as backup.

http://www.tommygodwin.com/the-machine/

[frankly frankie]

Pretty dismal things those old Dynohubs.  Not remotely comparable with any modern generator system, not even the pre-LED ones.

[trekker12]

By September 1939 the blackout regulations meant all lighting on cars and bicycles would have been no more than a half inch strip across the width of the lamp created by black tape.

I guess his lighting wasn't up to modern standards but the blackout lights would have been nothing more than enough for pedestrians to see him. With fuel restrictions and less people owning cars the only hazard out in the countryside would probably be wildlife anyway - and he had lots of carrots in his diet in order to see!

[MikeFromLFE]

I rode quite a lot in the 70s with nothing but SA Dynohub lighting. The alternative (in the 70s) was Ever Ready or Pifco battery lamps which eat batteries and had unreliable contacts, and depending on the type, required budging skills to keep them from making a break for freedom. Dynamo (generator) set-ups were the next best thing, but wire brush, and rubber rollers were unheard of; you had to learn to cope with slipping - and it rained more in the 70s
Motorists didn't expect hivis, or extra bright lights on cyclists - this type of lighting was the norm for cyclists to be seen by.
Street lighting wasn't particularly good outside urban areas, so you got used to riding with what you had.

Back to Tommy - much of the above applied in the late 30s. Battery lights were still by then, crude. The availability of spare batteries would have been patchy, particularly bearing in mind they would have been Zinc Oxide (?) cells with very poor life, and shelf life. Dynamo (generator) lights were available, such as Lucas, but if you've ever held, or should I say lifted, one, you'd know what the weight penalty would be. Street lighting would have been dim, but car lights would have been pretty poor too.

The lighting 'arms race' has only taken off with the development of newer lighting techniques, such as HID, xenon, and LED lighting, so,we are looking at this from a very 21st century perspective.
Another issue to consider, particularly when talking about the amount of traffic in the late 30s (and the 70s) is to look at the murderous rate of road deaths in that period - the 30s was when drink driving was not only normal, but macho, before MOT testing, and when there were still a lot of drivers around who,had a licence, but had never taken a test.
(By the 70s long distance lorry drivers were just getting out of the habit of taking drugs to keep them awake on multi-day multi-week non-stop trips......)

I use a SA Dynohub on my 1946 Hetchins adapted for LED lighting, and apart from low speed flicker (introduced by the rectifier) it's an excellent lighting set up.

[IanDG]

Anyone remember winter miles using these?

[mrcharly-YHT]

With no street lights, no lights from houses, no bright car headlights, Tommy's eyesight would have adapted to the dark. It is very very seldom so dark that we can't see.

Sunrise and sunset, when the sky is light but the landscape is dark, are the only times (IMO) when Tommy would have had trouble seeing where he was going.

[Salvatore]

Sturmey Archer advertising featuring Godwin centred around the 4 speed gear.

Not surprising, as the dynohub was a Raleigh product.

[Rainmaker]

 Yesterday at 11:48:17 PM by Peter

 I know traffic was much less but so were streetlights and I bet bike lights were next to useless. 

I started club riding in the early fifties and a motor vehicle was still a treasured thing and most private owners would "lay up" their vehicles in a garage for the winter.    Private cars were not a common sight during the winter and I would suggest even rarer during the hours of darkness.   The standard of lighting on cars was also far below current levels.
I can remember that an older member of the club had a carbide lantern which gave a superior light to the battery lights available at that time,  it would occasionally run out of water when a "natural break" was called for.
The conditions then, and probably even more so before World War 2, are very difficult to compare with current conditions.       

[tonyh]

Anyone remember winter miles using these?

Oh, yes!

[Salvatore]

Anyone remember winter miles using these?

Drew Buck used something similar on PBP in 1995 (to go with his 1950s fixed wheel bike).

The appropriate twin-cell batteries were no longer available, so he bodged something with a couple of C-cells and some tree bark.

[Ningishzidda]

It’s a ‘Background light pollution’ and an optical acclimatisation thing.

Without hardly any streetlamps and light from towns and cities reflecting off low cloud, 1939 roads would have been pitch black. A simple 2.5W filament bulb lamp would have lit the road like a floodlight with fully dilated eyes.

[Ningishzidda]

Anyone remember winter miles using these?

I still have a 1980s plastic version. With prismatic lens.

[Wowbagger]

I am currently sitting at my daughter's dining table. It used to belong to my mother, and hers before her. By my left elbow are two stains in the wood: adjacent black rings about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. I did that in the mid 1960s when I came in after cycling in the rain. My lamp, one of those in IanG's picture, when placed lens-down on the table, did that to ancient seasoned oak.

My mother was not very pleased.

[Kim]

It’s a ‘Background light pollution’ and an optical acclimatisation thing.

Without hardly any streetlamps and light from towns and cities reflecting off low cloud, 1939 roads would have been pitch black. A simple 2.5W filament bulb lamp would have lit the road like a floodlight with fully dilated eyes.

Quite.

And whatever other light sources were around (including vehicle headlights) would have been plain old filament lamps, too.  None of the efficient halogen, fluorescent, LED and gas discharge sources that we're used to.

If you're riding on night vision (which is more about rod cells than pupil dilation), then all you really need is a dim source to highlight the potholes and similar hazards in the fast-moving nearfield.  Until someone shines a light at you, anyway.

[Tomsk]

'Anyone remember...using these?'

Still got one! They were awful weren't they? Had to use garden wire to stop it jumping off the fork mount too.

But, yes, you did get used to riding in the semi-dark - there was a good case for carbide, or even oil lamps, but electricity is just so 20th century...

[mcshroom]

I've done short bits of night riding in pitch darkness around the coastal roads here (where you can see car headlights miles away). It's amazing what you can actually see.

I've also done quite a bit of night hiking deliberately not using lights as with a torch you see just the bright patch of the torch, but when your eyes have adapted you can see far more, if at lower resolution. However this goes out of the window as soon as a torch/car headlight is shone at you and the night vision is wiped out.

[Ningishzidda]

It’s a ‘Background light pollution’ and an optical acclimatisation thing.

Without hardly any streetlamps and light from towns and cities reflecting off low cloud, 1939 roads would have been pitch black. A simple 2.5W filament bulb lamp would have lit the road like a floodlight with fully dilated eyes.

Quite.

And whatever other light sources were around (including vehicle headlights) would have been plain old filament lamps, too.  None of the efficient halogen, fluorescent, LED and gas discharge sources that we're used to.

If you're riding on night vision (which is more about rod cells than pupil dilation), then all you really need is a dim source to highlight the potholes and similar hazards in the fast-moving nearfield.  Until someone shines a light at you, anyway.

The would have been Lucas. Off, dim or flickering.

[andrew_s]

when your eyes have adapted you can see far more, if at lower resolution. However this goes out of the window as soon as a torch/car headlight is shone at you and the night vision is wiped out.

You can close one eye to preserve the dark adaptation in that eye

[mcshroom]

when your eyes have adapted you can see far more, if at lower resolution. However this goes out of the window as soon as a torch/car headlight is shone at you and the night vision is wiped out.

You can close one eye to preserve the dark adaptation in that eye

Only if you know the idiot is going to turn their torch on in advance. Red light also has less of an effect on night vision, which is where the Harvey maps outperform OS maps durning night navigation, as their dark brown contours are easier to see under red light than the orange OS ones.

[jsabine]

I did wonder if we'd start to celebrate Lucas, Prince of Darkness.