Our amigo Paul, the owner of Paul Components, makes a couple of different light – camera – or accessory mounts that I’ve been experimenting with over the past few weeks. The first version that we’d like to share is the Stem Cap Mount.
The instructions are pretty simple – just like uncle gomez
Successfully Installed
A Magicshine 1400 mounted on Otis
I did a side by side comparison of my light mounted on the bar vs. the light mounted on the stem cap mount. The stem cap mount was an improvement over the light mounted on the bar, but in both cases, there was a shadow created by the handlebar bag that bothered me, so I sent for a couple of Gino Mounts from Paul to see if I could mount a light below the handlebar bag for a less obstructed illumination of the trail.
The Gino Mount
With two of these babies in hand, I headed out to the shop to test fit my magicshine triple and discovered that it’s really too wide to work with the Gino. So I mounted up a magicshine 900 single led light. On the opposite side of the fork, we mounted a Niterider HID along with it’s larger and heavier Battery pack in a water bottle cage, that was also mounted to the fork. To get either of these lights mounted, I had to remove the Salsa Anything Cages, which makes this set-up ok for short trips, but I carry lots of gear in those cages for multi-day trips, so for longer trips, I would probably rely upon a helmet mounted light.
The Illumination supplied by these two light sources in tandem was impressive, however, when you turn one or the other off, the massive Dillinger 5 tire that I’m running on Fatback’s Umma 90mm rims creates another annoying shadow. Another interesting aspect of having the lights mounted down low was riding in tall grass. Much of my home trail gets pretty over grown this time of year and some waist high vegetation made for a pretty triptastic strobe light effect as the lights burrowed and reflected, in and out of the tall grass. The light catches the spray of dew drops getting flung into the air in a small fireworks display that travels along with the front wheel. On normal trail the two lights provided me with good illumination, although I would still probably like to have a helmet mounted light along for singletrack. So that’s my current inner debate. Would I carry 2 or 3 lights along with batteries on anything longer than a few hour ride? On longer trips, I would probably only carry one light and multiple battery packs and I would mount that light on my knoggin, but for shorter rides, it would be nice to have back up lights or the massive illumination of three light sources!
Paul also makes a Stem Cap Go-Pro Camera Mount that I did not test. I think that both the Stem Cap and Gino Light mounts could act as versatile video camera mounts, using the go-pro handlebar mount to attach the camera. The Gino mounts, where ever you have a braze-on and that could make for some really interesting camera angles.
If you have some light or camera mount mods that you have had success with, or if you have some creative ways that you’ve utilized a Gino or Stem Cap light mount please share them with us. Send some photos of your mod to uncle gomez@fat-bike.com.
For more information about Paul Components visit – www.paulcomp.com
next you should test the stem cap camera mount!
I use the Gino on my commuter, and love it. Getting the light closer to the road surface really lights up the potholes and cracks. I find I can avoid stuff better, or at least brace for impact, than I would with a light mounted at a higher viewing angle.
I could see how the shadow cast by a tire of more…umm…epic proportion would be distracting, but don’t forget the benefit of getting a longer shadow on ground-based objects.
Nice review! You guys rock.
Me likes the Ginos.
Not sure if you will see this as it’s been a while since it was first published, but has any crash testing been done with the Gino Light Mount?