show me your fork light mounts

[bfromcolo]

OK its not a electronics question...

I'm trying to come up with ideas for a light mount that can attach to the fork, as the front bag on my touring bike would block any handlebar mounts. This is complicated by the cable for the cantilever brakes and the need to share the fork crown mounting point with my fenders.

Pictures would be great.

Thanks

 

[Steve K]

My commuting recumbent has a fork mount that is complicated by the fact that my feet are just above the light, so it sits somewhat low:

It's an aluminum fork, so I was trying to be gentle with it. I used a T bracket that I picked up at the hardware store (made for window or picture frames??). I wrapped one layer of inner tube around the fork blade, and clamped the T bracket to it with hose clamps. Not a pretty sight, but seems to work.
Other pics of the bike and light installation are here.

I also have a conventional touring/commuting/travel bike built by a local framebuilder. It was a great opportunity to get all of the braze-on fittings that a soul could desire, so I had a fitting added to the upper rear of the left fork blade for the purpose of mounting a headlight.

Pics are here.
I thought it worked out quite well. The hard part of any such fitting is getting it to clear your brakes (such as my cantilevers), the rack, the downtube, your feet (for recumbents), etc.

There's also the issue of not letting the tire obscure the headlight. My regular bike is fine in this regard, and even my 'bent is okay. A side benefit of the low fork mount is that the beam shines on the spokes, which is then visible from the sides. Kinda handy.

regards,
Steve K.

 

[pushy]

These are made from reticulation fittings, heated with a heat gun and shaped. Attached using zip ties and inner tube to protedt frame finish and provide grip. The one attached to the bike was formed from an right angle elbow, the one I'm holding is version 2 from a "T" piece.

 

[Savvas]

Brilliant!!!

 

[funkymonkey1111]

could you just use a regular twofish mount for a flashlight?

 

[jdp298]

Had to be a bit inventive with the caliper brakes, but I've got 2 on with this set up. Sadly the gap between the brakes and the wheel is too small for a reach-under fitting and the gap between front of the bottom of the steering column and the back of the calipers was too narrow to slot anything into. It's not totally ideal and I'd like the bolts to now be 1 cm longer than they are but I've got enough threads engaged that nothing's fell back out yet.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdp298/5893116333/in/photostream/

 

[Mazrim]

Saw this on another forum.

Expensive for what it is, but I'm sure you could knock up something equivalent for cheap as chips. It's a clever idea.

 

[BrianMc]

You said fork and not fork blade in particular, so fork crown is included:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/photo0225gi.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/153/photo0225gi.jpg/

Modded Marwi lights (XM-Ls) on Modded B & M mount. Some say not strong enough. So far, no sign of stress cracks.

 

[Spin]

I'm using a plastic microphone holder that i attached to my bike with L-brackets (right angle brackets) & steel hose clamps. This way i can slide 'most' of my round handheld flashlights within the holder. The mic holder can also swivel up & down. Sorry, i don't have any pictures.

 

[bfromcolo]

Saw this on another forum.

Expensive for what it is, but I'm sure you could knock up something equivalent for cheap as chips. It's a clever idea.

Thanks for everyone's responses.

My fork has the rack screws mid way, I think something like this would work fine. I could probably get away with using a longer screw and a stack of washers, or maybe a copper or PVC end cap.

 

[panicmechanic]

There's one in DX's offerings, if you like it cheap

 

[find_bruce]

Thanks Panic - was not put off by the $20 that paulcomp.com wanted, but rather the very high shipping costs to Oz. $4.25 including shipping though is much better value, even if I have to buy a few to get a colour that doesn't suck

 

[Lightdadark]

it's not on the forks but this is what I use... It came with my Mossberg 500 shotgun. Works perfect.

 

[Calina]

Hey ! It seems these could also be used as cheap decent ligth casings.

 

[find_bruce]

There's one in DX's offerings, if you like it cheap

Nice pretty, shiny, anodised aluminium, only 27g. 45 mm long x 24 mm diameter. Can screw onto a mounting lug as shown in the paulcomp.com pic above, but can also screw directly onto your quick release.

Is there a downside? For me, I really don't like the beam pattern it produces at that angle. Oh well, looks like I will have to consider pushy's set up instead.

 

[PCC]

Saw this on another forum.

Expensive for what it is, but I'm sure you could knock up something equivalent for cheap as chips. It's a clever idea.

I made something like this using some HTPE plastic and a short piece of excess aluminum steerer tube. If you want one I can whip one up fairly easily on the lathe in much the same way except that it would be made entirely out of aluminum.

 

[DavidAD]

http://www.nashbar.com/bikes/Product_10053_10052_164164_-1___ Steel or Al fork only.

 

[Bobblehat]

Reflector bracket used as light mount - simply remove reflector and rotate upper part by 90 deg. No annoying vibration and seems pretty robust. Just another idea.

 

[kenwood96]

started off with a dual headlight setup, but it was a little "to much" LOL
so now I'm on one, running straight from my shimano hubdynamo with bridge rectifier!

 

[2_i]

This would require discussing what makes a good light bracket, but in short I am not impressed with anything put forward so far for the fork arm. With that regard, a decent bracket meant originally for a bottle dynamo, but also accommodating a lamp was the Zinkens Dynashoe. Myself, I ended up using one for the lamp alone, driven by a hub dynamo, before taking the lamp off the fork entirely. Alas, with the decline of bottle dynamos, at least on better bikes in Europe, the production of the Dynashoe was stopped. You may still find it somewhere as old stock if you google enough around.