Randonneuring differs from other long-distance riding in that one is constantly navigating an unfamiliar route, often with lots of turns, and one has to be prepared to ride (and navigate) in the dark. The methods for doing both have advanced enormously since I began riding brevets in 2005: Halogens have been replaced by LED bulbs, and navigation has been greatly aided by GPS devices (a leap forward that cannot be over-emphasized).
The central component that makes it possible for GPS and lighting to operate over long, long rides is the front hub, pictured above. The Schmidt dynamo provides power to the twin Schmidt eDelux lights, and, when the lights are switched off in the daytime, it supplies current to keep charged an external battery pack and an iPhone and an LED light for reading the cue sheet at night.
The wires run from the lights to the hub, pictured above, sliding on to a pair of spade connectors. When the front wheel needs to be removed, I used to have to gently pull these connectors off the flat spades and reattach them once the wheel was back on. Pulling them off always risked pulling apart the wires from the connectors, and putting them back on was difficult work, especially in the dark. Now I leave the wires affixed to the hub and, instead, free the wheel for removal by simply pulling apart the wires where they are joined with a magnetic coupling device, shown separated below:
So that takes care of generating electricity, and if all I needed were headlights at night, that would be the complete setup: dynamo, break-apart wiring, and lights. But navigating also requires electricity, given that I'm riding for many, many hours at a time, and relying on an iPhone and cue sheet to do so. That's why I've installed a USB port on my fork (pictured below) from which I can draw power from the hub when the lights are off:
From there, the USB cable runs up to a top-tube bag, through a waterproof opening in its side, and into power input on the side of a pass-through power bank. Then an iPhone is plugged into the charger's output jack (pictured below). The reason to use a "pass-through" charger is so, when the power bank is full, electricity from the hub will pass through to the iPhone, topping off its battery as well. A standard (and cheaper) power bank will not charge a phone while it is plugged into a power supply.
This shows the USB cable passing through the side of the top-tube bag, and how the iPhone is mounted (in its waterproof case) to the handlebar stem using a vice device. (It also shows my great brass bell.) I run ridewithgps on the phone to view the route, and, with a single earbud in my right (away from traffic) ear, I listen to the turn-by-turn instructions. I also rely on a printed cue sheet, both as a backup in case of app- or device-failure, but also for the additional info found on a cue sheet, such as dangerous railroad crossings, fast traffic, off-route bike repair and food, etc. Below is a picture of my cue-box, a homemade device for holding an entire cue sheet, free from getting wet and the necessity of turning over pages. It is made by taping the cue sheets' pages end-to-end and winding up on the lower roller, where it's slowly transferred to the upper roller by turning the knob after each turn is made:
Inside the cue box, under the cue sheet, is a set of LED lights. They are connected to a small rechargeable power bank (that's attached, between the handlebars and the box, to the box's supports) by the gooseneck cable you see on the far left. The power bank's on/off switch serves to activate the lights (see below). From the power input jack on the power bank a cable runs into the bag (the red cable seen in the photo earlier); during the day the battery pack can be recharged by unplugging the iPhone and plugging this red cord into the pass-through chargers output jack.
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