Boah!

The most limiting factor of commuting has to be the winter darkness. On the 21st of December in Berlin the sun rises shortly after eight and has set again by 4. I work an 8 1/2 hour day with at least an hour's commute each way so that in the deepest winter the whole journey is done in the dark. For over 15 km of my commute there is no street lighting and since I didn't have any decent lighting until last week I had to time my cycle so that the sun was up just enough to navigate this part of the journey.
I've had a number of battery-powered lights and they've all been hopeless, the biggest problem being the cold. The batteries seem fine for 20 mins and after it just gets worse and worse. I realised the only practical option would be a dynohub. I'd heard so much about the Schmidt SON dynamos but just couldn't afford a new one so I went for Shimano's 3N71.
The time seemed right to get new lighting looking at the newest generation of LED lights that came on the market end of 2007. Amongst these the Busch & Müller' Lumotec IQ Fly seemed the best value so went out and got one to go with my new dynamo.
I mounted the light on a piece of right angled steel directly on to the quick-release skewer so I can easily swap the wheel-lamp combination back and forth with other wheels.
The first time I rode with the lamp the only thing I could say was boah!
The IQ Fly outputs extremely bright, white light in three beams. The centermost and most intensive building a block of light 5m in front of the bike, bright enough to take in every detail even at 30km/h. The narrower beam lights up details like trees at a distance of 100m. The white light reflects intensively off reflective surfaces like signs but more usefully the reflective linings on jogger's clothing.
The Shimano 3N71 is also very recommendable. There is a noticeable resistance when the light is on but it varies. At it's strongest it feels like a slight climb. Laced up with a Mavic Open 4CD it has made a beutifully stiff, well handling wheel and the extra weight at the front seems to suit my "Batavus Professional" very well.