Originally Posted by
noglider
I think it's fun to laugh at the well equipped people who aren't as fast as they want to be, but not so cool to convey my disdain outwardly.
Sorry, I was talking about car headlights. I'm not sure about bike headlights in the day, though in heavy traffic, they do seem like a good idea. I prefer neither rechargeable nor disposable batteries. I usually
power my headlight with a dynamo hub. Believe me, if you get one of these setups, you will wonder why you waited so long. (But I do have a racing bike that I won't make heavy, and I run a USB-rechargeable headlight on it.) My lights come on whenever the bike rolls, and they stay lit for a few minutes afterwards. I don't think about charging.
Believe me, I wouldn't have said anything if he didn't try to look tough by riding like a lunatic on the downhill portion. The way I see it (but I'm a noob, so I don't know any better), it's fun/ok to have a little climbing contest on the way up, if that's your thing, since the speed is invariably kept reasonable. But trying to see who can hit a higher top speed going downhill among pedestrians, dogs, people riding the other direction... is just stupid. Also, after the climb when it leveled off and this guy caught up, there was a huge headwind and this clown thought it was fun to sit right on my wheel like we were in the peloton.
My brother had one of those dynamo powered lights on his bike when we were growing up, and I remember that it never worked that well. It's seemed to need constant adjusting. But I wouldn't be surprised if they have improved a lot in the past 30 years, just live VCR's and Answering Machines... Still, I'm leaning toward the USB rechargeable route.