If you’ve ever thought that bicycle lights just aren’t complicated enough, NiteRider has the light for you. The headline specs are impressive enough – 1,200 lumen output (and, according to NiteRider, that’s measured output, rather than cut-and-pasted emitter manufacturer’s theoretical max output) from two emitters, one spot, one flood; 9,600mAh Li-ion battery with quick-release cradle so you don’t have to mess around with Velcro and cables, eight-step fuel gauge and NiteRider’s usual rugged construction.

None of that is the clever bit, though. The clever bit is the docking station. Not only does this charge the battery, it also has both a USB connection for a PC and a socket to plug the lamp unit into. Hook it all up, run NiteRider’s software and you can fiddle around with settings to your heart’s content. Rather than sticking with the usual low/medium/high kind of settings, the Pro 1200 lets you assign any mix of spot and flood output to each available setting. So if you want old-school spot only/flood only/both together you can do that, or if you want 100% flood and 50% spot as one setting and 25% each on another you can have that too. The software gives you an estimate of runtime as you change things, so if you’re planning a 24 hour race you can fine-tune things to the amount of darkness you’re expecting.

A number of lights have offered a degree of customisation in the past, but the NiteRider Pro 1200 is the first with this kind of flexibility. Whether you actually need it is, of course, an entirely other question… You can play with the NiteRider software at www.niterider.com.