NiteRider Lumina 1000 Boost Front Bike Light

The NiteRider Lumina 1000 Boost Front Bike Light is robust and simple to use, with decent output for seeing with, but quite short run-times and slow charging. And though the mount it comes with is very solid, it only works with classic round handlebars not ones with deep aero-shaped tops – you'll need to buy a separate aero bar mount for those.

For more options, check out our guide to the best front bike lights.

Modes & run-times

The Lumina 1000 Boost has a super-bright day flash along with some pretty good constant modes for use in the dark.

For cycling, it has four solid modes – Low (200lm), Medium (300lm), High (750lm) and Boost (1,000lm), and two flashing, Fast Flash and Pulse, plus a 50-lumen Walk mode.

NiteRider claims a maximum of 21 hours of battery life, but this is for the Walk mode; the longest-lasting usable mode for cycling is Pulse, a mix of constant with brighter pulses, which lasts for a claimed 10hrs 30mins.

On the brightest 1,000-lumen mode the battery lasted for just over the claimed hour, and the other modes also match the run-times NiteRider claims.

During the day I mostly used the Fast flash. It's super bright, and visible from long distances. It lasts for 6 hours on a full charge.

For night riding on the road, I was mostly flicking between the 375 and 750-lumen modes, depending on the quality of the surfaces and whether there was any other lighting about. I do think a 500-lumen option would have been ideal for the majority of my road riding.

The beam has quite a rectangular pattern, which means there's not too much glare for oncoming traffic, but it's very concentrated in the middle with little spread, making it quite hard to pick things out, like potholes, and limiting for off-road use as you can't see the sides of the trails.

One big drawback of this light is that there is very little indication for how much juice there is left in the battery; the only indication you get is that the button on top turns red when the battery level is below 20%. Anything above that is blue, which means if you aren't sure when you last charged it, you have no way of knowing if you're at 25% or 100% charge. Not ideal.

Once the battery is flat, charging it is another frustration. While the whole world has adopted USB-C for its far superior qualities, NiteRider is still using micro-USB, and charging this light is really slow. NiteRider says using a charger that outputs more than 500mA will take 3 hours, and a lower charger will take 6 hours; ours took 3.5 hours.

You can't use the light while it's charging, either, which might rule it out for some bikepacking or ultra rides.

Build

On the plus side, the single button on the top of the light is big enough to be easy to use when you have gloves on, which is perfect for the winter months.

It's well made, too, with a fiberglass body and aluminium fins that act as a heatsink, to help keep the whole system cool.

It's rated to IP64 for dust and water resistance, and there is a heavy rubber seal over the charge port. I've used the light in some awful weather and not had any issues with water ingress.

Mount

The NiteRider has quite a small footprint, so won't take up much space on handlebars.

It mounts with a proprietary locking system, with rails on the bottom of the light that in turn slide into the mount.

I found this easy to fit, with a screw to tighten up the clamp, but it can only mount to a standard round bar (25.4mm to 35mm diameter). If you have an aero-shaped bar you'll need the aero mount that NiteRider sells separately, or a GoPro adaptor so you could fit it under an out-front mount.

When the light slides easily into the mount, a little locking tab holds it in place. I found that sometimes it automatically locked in place, but other times I had to just make sure the tab on the mount was pulled up into place, to hold the light securely. The light can swivel on the mount, which is handy.

The mount has a rubber insert that sits inside it and works really well – there was no slippage, the light stayed fixed in place – but be aware that this can fall out when you take off the mount if you aren't careful.

Also, while out testing the light on the bike I did notice a slight rattle developing when going over bumpy roads, which doesn't give me the best confidence in the mount for longevity.

Travel safe

When the light arrived it was in Travel Lock Out Mode, which, as the name suggests, means the light can't be turned on accidentally; you have to press and hold the power button for 10 seconds. This is ideal when you throw the light in a bag and don't want to risk it turning on and running out of power. Laurence found the 900-lumen model he reviewed had a habit of locking, but I haven't had any issues with this one.

Value

Coming in at £85, this isn't a cheap light. The build quality is definitely high, but for that money I'd expect better battery indication, and while the output is good, the battery life isn't as impressive as other lights in a similar price bracket, such as the BBB Strike Duo that I tested last year, which offers 1hr 45mins at 1,200 lumens for just under £75.

And for around £64 (currently discounted to £49.37) there's the Gaciron Kiwi 1200, which also offers a longer run-time of 90 minutes on full.

It might help if NiteRider included its aero mount or GoPro-compatible adaptor in the box, so the light could appeal to more people, and help justify the price.

Conclusion

To my mind, the rather outdated micro-USB charging and rattling mount detract from the decent light output, and I'd struggle to say this is the one to go for at around £80. It's not bad, but there are better options out there.

Verdict

Decent output, but with some outdated features for the money