Stabilizing handlebar mounts?
 

Anybody found something good to keep top-heavy stuff like flashlight mounts from tipping on rough roads, while leaving them loose enough for minor on-the-go adjustments? Last 3 flashlight mounts I've tried just couldn't tighten up enough even with all their spacers to keep it from being a constant struggle to keep the light pointed ahead instead of up or down when I'm bombing down the chipseal on the big hill at the work end of my commute.

I've thought about some sort of glue, but I still want to be able to tweak the vertical position for a given situation. Maybe some epoxy applied to the bars in lumps or strips and allowed to cure before reattaching the mount to make a rougher surface for it to grip?

If you don't want to modify your bars then try a layer of friction tape (also called Hockey Tape, but cheaper at the home improvement store than the sporting good store). then put the mount on. That will at least give a better gripping serface than the usually glossy or smooth handlebars. Also it leaves little to no residue when removed from the bars.

What I've done when flashlight mounts weren't tight enough was to cut some strips from an old inner tube and put them around the handlebar inside the mount. Use as many layers as needed.

Buy a better flashlight mount. Here's one that will stay where you put it and has the ability to be swiveled 360 degrees. I use three of these to mount things other than flashlights on my recumbent trike as well as hold an LED flashlight. You can buy it for a buck from an overseas seller or pay $4 for the exact same mount shipped from California.

New 360 Degree Bicycle LED Flashlight Mount Holder For Bicycle Torch Clip Clamp | eBay $1 postpaid with about a 14 -17 day delivery time to your mailbox.
New 360° Swivel Bicycle Bike Mount Holder Clip Clamp for Led Flashlight Torch | eBay
$4 for 6 day delivery via US mail

Does that really hold the light firmly? I see no knob for tightening. I see it will hold the handlebar well.

Looks pretty much identical to the last one I gave up on. Even with both the included spacers in, and the screw tightened all the way, it slipped too much, and the light side of it wouldn't hold smaller (Fenix AA) lights well.

+1 This works for me.

This is what I do. I also purchased some rubber tubing from the hardware store that works great. :thumb:

I tighten the inner tube around the handlebar and secure it with medical tape before putting the accessory on top.

I use electrical tape the same way, which works very well for me.

In my experience, the typical plastic electric tape slips over time, while the typical cloth medical tape stays in place. I think this has to do with the fact that adhesive permeates the cloth. The thinner layer of adhesive left between adhering surfaces solidifies faster. However, I encountered also cloth electric tapes, but not recently. Also the accessory is less likely to slip over the cloth.

I tighten it down enough where there's no way it can slip.

I also use strips of cut bike tube to make spacers since you can get the exact space needed. You can use Elmer's No-wrinkle Rubber Cement to adhere the layers together once you get the length right. It doesn't mar paint and leaves no residue. I bought an 8 oz jar from an office supply store. It's the same stuff found in patch kit tubes but a lot handier when you need to patch a tube and way cheaper in the long run. Just clean it off any excess with a cloth. A lot of tapes leave adhesive residue and ooze adhesive in the heat. Rubber cement stays put.

By far the best shimming/spacer material I've found is 3M Temflex #2155 rubber splicing "tape", available for about three bucks in the electrical section of many home centers and hardware stores. This has no adhesive to get slimy like vinyl tape. It is a roll of very tacky plain rubber that stretches like bubble gum. You peel off the backing and stretch it around the bar/seatstay/whatever until you have wrapped it to the desired thickness. The rubber sticks to itself to form a very solid, yet sticky shim that will not slip and lasts a long time, yet can be cut off without leaving any residue. It also seems to have some shock absorbing qualities which helps with mounts that take a lot of abuse like seatstay-mounted taillights.

There are probably some mounts that it will fuse itself to eventually, but I've used it with TwoFish rubber mounts as well as a few types of hard plastic clamps and I haven't had a problem so far.

It also works well for making brake cable boots and other miscellaneous tasks. Good stuff.

That looks interesting, I may give it a go, thanks. :thumb:

This sounds like the best plan so far. Just hoping my extender comes in soon so I can get everything on the bars and try it on all the stuff. ("See" headlight, "be seen" headlight, computer, cell phone mount and possibly something to hold a USB power bank...plus the extender itself as my previous one spent most of its time hanging under the bars with the flashlight mounted on it trying to fall out of the holder.)

[MENTION=36500]Metaluna[/MENTION], what a great suggestion, everyone usually jumps on the vinyl electrical tape bandwagon first, but for grip this sounds way better, I am going to log this in the back of my mind the next time I need something like this.

Thanks. I actually first heard about it in one of the other forums here several years ago. It comes up occasionally as a finishing tape for handlebar wrapping, but I don't like it as much for that. It holds great, but because it stretches so much, the width also changes a lot depending on how hard you pull it, so you can see where one layer overlaps another if you aren't careful. Probably looks better with practice. With electrical tape you can do a couple of wraps around and have a nice sharp border because the width never changes as you wrap the tape back on itself. I did use it recently to shim some bar end plugs that kept falling out though.

It looks like it's been mentioned in the Electronics forum once before as well, but doesn't come up very often.

[MENTION=36500]Metaluna[/MENTION]
I would never use this for handlebar tape finishing, but I don't use vinyl tape either, as the adhesive and the tape becomes a gooey mess in the summer. For finishing handlebar tape I always use friction tape (also available at Satan's retail outlet Home Depot). The cloth backing holds up better and it basically only sticks to itself. Downside is that the first few rides the tar-like coating wipes off a bit until it dries up completely in the weather (can be mitigated some by washing first).

I will probably pick up a roll of the rubber splicing tape next time I am in Lowes. Who knows what else it might be useful for.

I just tried such a vulcanizing tape, though not 3M brand, with mixed results. I.e. it is easy to get a very solid grip, but in practical situations you want to have leeway in regulating the tightness of the grip. For this vulcanizing tape, you pass too abruptly from a loose grip to very tight. Most often I want the accessory to hold tight, but still be able to change the angle if I want, while riding. Also in any kind of fall, I want the accessory to be able to shift rather than getting broken because it has to take on the full impact. This requires fine-tuning the grip, not that straightforward with the vulcanizing tape.

Actually, that sounds ideal for the extender's mounts, (came in today, and of course the shims are hard plastic that has no grip whatsoever on the shiny bars...and of course, the old tube I had laying around the office got tossed in a cleanup a couple weeks ago.) and for other stuff that shouldn't move. (Thinking about a fork mounted stud to put a headlight lower - since I wouldn't be able to adjust it while riding, solid position holding is critical there.)

For this kind of application, where the center of mass is displaced relative to the bars, you could indeed use any amount of grip.

Mounting the headlight in that area puts the lamp in peril, making it likely to get broken in a fall or when the bike is parked by a rack and gets knocked by other bikes. Typical fork mounts are further feeble. I am aware of one good mount only, Zinkens Dynashoe - benefits of the design should be apparent in the photo:

http://www.blayleys.com/articles/lig.../dynashoe2.jpg

Alas, with the demise of bottle dynamos, that mount, which accommodates also a dynamo, is not produced anymore.

Not too worried, since I'm also planning to mount a front rack soon to accommodate batteries and controller for a front hub motor. Once everything is built out, it should do a fair job of shielding a Magicshine clone or similar there.

Back in the days when I used flashlights, I made a few mounts based around Mawri mounts. This is a helmet mount but you can get the idea

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/IMGP0965.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/IMGP0966.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/IMGP0973.jpg

I used a seatpost reflector mount in the proper size to wrap around the barrel of the flashlight and a bolt to hold it in place. The adapter slides onto a clamp that goes around the bar like this. The mount on this light is different but the idea is the same and the adapter works on all of the Mawri mounts.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/IMGP0970.jpg
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/IMGP0963.jpg

You can get the mounts and hardware from a company called Hoffman Amps. If you use MagicShine or the clones, Hoffman sells adapter kits to this kind of clamp. They are much better then the o-ring clamps

Checking them out now. Finally ordered a replacement for my old MS clone, and it should be coming in soon, so I'm sure I'll be looking for something stable about the second or third time I try to use it on chipseal.