Since I knew I was going to be doing a lot of bikepacking with my Surly Krampus I, like many others, wanted to be able to run a light and have USB power. The reasons for the long-distance rider are obvious: you want to be able to ride with good illumination into the night and make sure that cell phone or GPS are always topped off.
It doesn’t take a deep dive of the internet to quickly find out that if you are thinking of bikepacking lights the name K-lite will come up time and time again. The k-lite (http://www.klite.com.au) is the brain child of Kerry Staite, an all around great guy, and his lights have a reputation for being bomber – proof in their having traversed all parts of the world by all sorts of adventure cyclists. Throw in the fact that his light is a low-drag, 1200 lumen minimalist’s dream and this was a no brainer. Order that shit!!
You see, as it turns out I also have a good case of OCD, or at least I appreciate a good clean setup on my bikes. Having seen a veritable shit show of dynamo-USB-light wiring schemes, I also wanted a clean solution. That meant hidden wiring (as much as possible) and a slick USB setup. The Sinewave Reactor, with its integrated stem cap mounting and waterproof port was another obvious choice to minimize cabling. One more conversation with Kerry who was able to wire up an integrated switch for the stem stack spacers and I was off.
Since the Surly Krampus was in NO way intended to handle internal cable routing for a dynamo hub, I had to get creative. The USB reactor and K-lite top cap switch were modified to run internally and thus exit down the steerer tube by passing (closely) past the star nut. For those interested, the switch was 3D printed and wired to provide USB or USB+Light from the hub. Anyway, I used a brake cable to fish up the fork as a guide for the dynamo cable.
Here is the tiny drain hold that I fished the brake cable up, and ultimately would pull the dynamo cable out, as this exits exactly where the dynamo hub connectors are at the axle. It goes without saying that internal routing is highly desirable, especially for bikepacking since it is less to be exposed to the elements!
Once I had fished the brake cable through, I grabbed it with an angle pliers and used a single wrap of electrical tape to union the two cables. Luckily it held!
Sweet sweet victory!!!
The only bits of exposed dynamo cabling, wired up, soldered, and finished!
Close up of the connection. This is all that is exposed and far better than what I had before, which was 10 zip ties holding the cable to the fork leg.
Let there be light! 1200 lumens of light + usb power to be exact! There is nothing more awesome than generating power from beer + waffles.
