This night busting light from US brand NiteRider may look expensive but its overbuilt construction and high capacity battery make it an ultra-reliable epic ride workhorse.
The swivel-hinged and ratchet-tilted bar mount is a lot heavier and bulkier than an O-ring but it sits the light in front of your stem and any control lines and makes it easy to get the beam pointing where you want it. The plastic head unit has proved super-durable on long-term sets but it’s light enough to be comfortable with the supplied helmet mount.
The Pro 1200 has 50 percent less power than the pricier 1800 and looks expensive in lumen-per-pound terms. That’s a genuine tested output rather than a theoretical maximum rating though, and the three-LED cluster gives excellent, consistent power coverage with tons of peripheral for twisty technical trails. Run time on full power is just under two hours, but it’s easy to extend that using lower power modes.
There’s an LED battery life ‘traffic light’ on the head too. The long hardshell battery can be awkward to fit though and at nearly 500g it’s not really 'race’ weight compared with all-in-one battery and lamp units.
