My gawd, i'm a hack! fork mount hack

[Mr. Beanz]

I've seen some videos by Zip here with views from other places than the handlebars. I have a hb mount and a rear saddle rail mount which is cool but a PIA to get on and takes up the seat pack area. I've used the under the DT and front seatpost view a few years ago when I had a roll bar mount that really sucked ha ha!

But after viewing the others a few days ago, I thought I should look into a mount that would allow me to get those shots again. I see they can be expensive for what they are. $45+

Heck, when I bought my K-Edge HB mount few years back they ran $69. Now the suckers run $39 or so. Oh well!

So I was looking on youtubie looking for mounts and maybe prices. That is when I ran across this hack. Use the gropro pretty much useless till now flat base mounts. A few of the links I got with the camera, another helmet link, then followed the instructions.

Pretty easy, cut channels in the shape of cross into the padding adhesive of the flat mount. Then use an old ID plastic card type to glue the remaining 4 pads onto the card as a backing, trimmed to size.

The crosses leave channels so that one can slip the zipties through mounting to the fork or seatstays, chainstays, downtube whatever.

Looks pretty good but I'll have to test it as well as place a rubber tube between it and the bike.

I don't see why it won't work and it was free to me! And more than likely free to others who have bougth GoPro video cameras.

Crappy pics but you get the idea.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

The video I copied. Zip tie mount.

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[BrianNystrom]

There's one huge and potentially expensive flaw in your plan. The adhesive back plate is designed to go onto a flat surface. If you try to wrap this around a curved surface, The plastic card will flex and it will either tear the foam adhesive pad (most likely) or cause the adhesive to separate from either the plastic card or the backing plate. Either way, your camera gets a quick trip to the ground.

A second problem that's seriously dangerous is that there is not much surface area or friction between the plastic card and whatever tube you attach it to, so it's going to move around, probably a lot. If you put it on a tapered tube like a fork blade or a seat stay, it's likely to slide down and end up in your spokes. This is bad enough in the rear, where it will likely trash your camera and possibly the wheel and/or the frame, but in the front, it could lock up the wheel and send you over the bars.

Notice that in the video, he showed installing the camera on static objects (posts), not a bouncing bike. This is a classic case of a viable solution for one application that is hugely dangerous in another.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

There's one huge and potentially expensive flaw in your plan. The adhesive back plate is designed to go onto a flat surface. If you try to wrap this around a curved surface, The plastic card will flex and it will either tear the foam adhesive pad (most likely) or cause the adhesive to separate from either the plastic card or the backing plate. Either way, your camera gets a quick trip to the ground.

A second problem that's seriously dangerous is that there is not much surface area or friction between the plastic card and whatever tube you attach it to, so it's going to move around, probably a lot. If you put it on a tapered tube like a fork blade or a seat stay, it's likely to slide down and end up in your spokes. This is bad enough in the rear, where it will likely trash your camera and possibly the wheel and/or the frame, but in the front, it could lock up the wheel and send you over the bars.

Notice that in the video, he showed installing the camera on static objects (posts), not a bouncing bike. This is a classic case of a viable solution for one application that is hugely dangerous in another.

Yeah, I did test it to see how it would sit on the bike and it does not work well at all. Exactly with the straps bending the card. I don't know how he actually got the mount in his video to hang onto that round pole he used. As soon as I started to tighten the zip ties, the card started to collapse. So actually this zip tie mount is useless.

Of you are going to mount it this way, it's better to just use the adhesive from the start.

I have other mounts that work made of aluminum. Just tried this one to see how it would work but it doesn't.

DON'T DO IT!!!