Front Lights (not on the handlebars)

thayer19 · Post by **thayer19** » 20 Jul 2016, 8:12am

Hi guys

My touring set up uses a handlebar bag and as a result I'm not able to mount a front light on the handlebar. Been trying to find a solution for it and I've got a couple of ideas but would be interesting to hear other people ways of getting round this.

I know carradice have the light bracket on their handlebar bag, does anyone have much experience of this?

Cateye also produce this fork mount, however, most of cateye front lights are rechargeable/usb chargeable which isn't ideal. That otherwise would be good. I know rixen & kaul produce a mount, that looks huge though?

Is anyone aware if a brand such as busch & miller produce a battery driven light that mounts on the forks? Seems all of those are dynamo.

i know those bar extenders exist, however, I find they don't look the prettiest on the bike.

Anyway, hopefully people can shed some light on this as it must be a pretty common issue.

Cheers

iviehoff · Post by **iviehoff** » 20 Jul 2016, 8:37am

In ye olden days, many bikes had a braze-on to fit a lamp on the side of a fork. If you never use front panniers, such a location it is an option, though since you probably don't the braze-on, you will have to see what can be done with a rack eye or a brake eye, etc, I've seen them both recruited into use.

Another common place is on the fork crown. Since the light has to be mounted on an offset bracket, it is more suitable for very light lights, especially for dynamo lights, where the bracket is often integrated into the light. It can be tricky to arrange it so that it doesn't foul the brake if you have cantilevers or V-brakes, though I have done it several times with cantilevers. But your handlebar bag will need to be high enough so it doesn't block the light.

My Reelights are fitted at the fork drop-out. I haven't come across any other kind of light which fits there, and Reelights being what they are (look them up) aren't going to light up the night for you, but clearly it presents an option if someone has devised a system. Probably not possible if you use front panniers.

Yet another location is on the front tip of the front mudguard. This tends to be a design feature of a specific mudguard, usually heavy mudguards for a Dutch type city bike or the like, and clearly only very light-weight lights can be used, generally dynamo powered, or very minimal LED lights. Rather an exposed location though, likely to get broken off if regularly parked in public bike racks.

On a bike with a low rider rack of the kind that has a hoop going over the front wheel, I once fitted a light onto that hoop. Again it was a dynamo light.

A commonly seen location is on your helmet, if you wear one.

Winders · Post by **Winders** » 20 Jul 2016, 8:42am

The Rixen & Kaul fork crown mounted bracket isn't huge but will fit around V brakes. It's also low enough to sit underneath bar bags and baskets.

I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my wobbly bog brush using hovercraft full of eels

Paulatic · Post by **Paulatic** » 20 Jul 2016, 8:47am

I made this one

ribblerouser · Post by **ribblerouser** » 20 Jul 2016, 8:58am

Cateye also do a neat bracket to fit on the fork crown, you have to use a compatible light though (Opticube HL 100 on mine)
Only place I found that stocked them was Edinburgh Bike Coop.

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hamster · Post by **hamster** » 20 Jul 2016, 9:14am

I made up a piece of an old handlebar attached to an SKS fork crown lamp bracket. Any bar mount lamp will clamp to it as normal.

thayer19 · Post by **thayer19** » 20 Jul 2016, 9:15am

Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll look into the above. Should have just got a dynamo in the first place.

Ah yeah I’ve seen those cateye mounts, most of their front lights are plug in rechargeable rather than battery, except the one you mention however. Is that more of a be seen safety light rather than a light the road light?

pjclinch · Post by **pjclinch** » 20 Jul 2016, 9:25am

There are those extension bar things like the Minoura Space Mount that mount above the bars and give you a rail to put on all those things you can't get on the bars because a bag's in the way. Never used one myself (dynamo lights here) but they seem viable.

Pete.

cb_stalbans · Post by **cb_stalbans** » 20 Jul 2016, 9:29am

This is what you want to mount a light next to the front wheel hub - we have them on all our bikes. Available form Clee cycles.

KCNC Wheel Skewer Light Mount
CNC machined light mount bracket designed to attach to the front wheel skewer in place of the skewer QR nut.
Can also be used on the rear drive side to protect the rear derailleur during a crash!.

Machined from 6061 alloy
25.4mm diameter, 60mm total.
standard M5 thread
Weighs 13g

http://clee-cycles.co.uk/P3104/product

Audax67 · Post by **Audax67** » 20 Jul 2016, 9:32am

B&M's IXON IQ can be fork-mounted using one of their accessories. If you're using calliper brakes the thick steel bridle they supply may be too much for any length of crown nut available, but you can get a thinner B&M bracket that will work.

Lamp: http://en.bumm.de/produkte/akku-scheinw ... on-iq.html and https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lighting/bu ... ont-light/
Fork mount: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lighting-sp ... ion-bmd40/
Bracket: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/lighting-sp ... kes-short/

I usually use fork-mounted dynamo lights, but I also use one of these for back-up battery lights:

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/accessories ... -x-tender/

This allows me to sling an old Cateye HL-530 under the bar bag, or even the Ixon alongside it, if I move the extender to the bars. This Christmas-tree was my initial go at a set-up for PBP last year, you can just about see the Topeak effort under all the junk. I did simplify it later. :roll:

Tangled Metal · Post by **Tangled Metal** » 20 Jul 2016, 10:07am

I've got the carradry bar bag which has a little T bar that attaches to the underside of the bag. It has two short plastic bars sticking either side of the attachment bar to.take two items at most. It sits in the bag side pocket in case it's needed.

Tangled Metal · Post by **Tangled Metal** » 20 Jul 2016, 10:15am

I've seen some interesting setups online. Things like a flipped stem used under the main one with cut to size old flat bars to give you more attachment points. Not sure what website it was in but could be crazy guy on a bike or one of the other website based bloggers/information resources for touring. I think it could be the site of the two teachers who started touring after backpacking for years due to knee issues. Think they were ne England based. Do a search online for.images of cycle touring setups. I think that was what I did.

Audax67 · Post by **Audax67** » 20 Jul 2016, 10:29am

Main problem with mounting a lamp on the front of a bar bag is that it jiggles around. I've ridden behind people I'd cheerfully have throttled to get rid of their wretched saddlebag-mounted rearlights screwing the eyes out of my head.

WRT DIY mounts for QR releases, a lassie I know had a claim against a bike manufacturer dismissed. Her carbon fork broke, and the manufacturer's expert witness used the presence of such a mount as part of his presentation. Also, I've noticed on other folks' bikes that the light often ends up pointing at the ground.

LollyKat · Post by **LollyKat** » 20 Jul 2016, 10:53am

If you use the Rixen & Kaul handlebar mount, which comes with Carradice bags and works with Ortliebs, you could add their Multiclip Plus extension:

The small Topeak bar bag has something similar, but the bag itself is very small. The T-bar supplied with the Carradice bags isn't really that good as it bounces around with the bag, and a lot of light clips are too chunky to fit around it easily - at least they do, but you can't angle the light correctly.

Some reviews of R&K multiclip report that the bar bag cuts off some of the light - it probably depends on the bag. You could get one of the Skewer Light Mounts mentioned above and use it with a decent light to see by, together with a small blinky on a Carradice T-bar or on the head tube.

andrew_s · Post by **andrew_s** » 20 Jul 2016, 2:13pm

thayer19 wrote:I know carradice have the light bracket on their handlebar bag, does anyone have much experience of this?

A light mounted on a handlebar bag will bounce around quite a lot if the road is (as usual) less than perfectly smooth. It's quite off-putting riding behind a light that's effectively flickering violently. A very broad flood would probably be OK, but that would cut down on how far ahead you could see. This is from experience of riding next to or in front of someone with a bag-mounted light, rather than having one myself.

I'd be inclined to put a mount like this onto the low-rider boss on my forks, and use a handlebar-mount light on it.
At the fork crown is probably the best place to put a light, but if there's a handlebar bag above the light may well be bashed by a bouncing bag, and also most fork crown mounts are intended for dynamo lights, and may end up breaking from metal fatigue due to the extra weight of batteries.

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