Its a nice idea, would fit my riding pattern of mostly long road rides *aiming* to be home before dark, but very rarely get caught out needing lights, but use them so rarely I never know how much battery is left.
I assume it doesn't work for carbon rims?
They'd have probably been better turning it into a charging system to top up a battery pack for phone or gps-cycle-gadget though
Correct wouldn't work for carbon, though some really old carbon rims still had a strip of aluminum for the braking surfaces.
If you want enough to charge a phone you could get a dynamo wheel, but even then its just 3 watts (
1 or
2, and price is high.
I ended up using 3x 18650 cells in my seatpost, then charge them every few weeks. Weight: ~150g, ~35Whr (3W of lights would last 11hrs).
Wow I don't think I've ridden 1,000km in 20 years. I'm not a serious cyclist though.
Yeah you need to consistently ride to build up km's to the point you actually wear through pads/bearings
But its not impossible if commuting a short distance regularly: 20km * 250 work days = 5,000km per year.