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How do you write an engaging review about a light bracket? I’ll do my best and let’s see how it goes.
Riding at night is an interesting affair, at least as far as lighting is concerned. I generally carry an array of lights to cover every eventuality: urban, back roads and off road.I also strap a Garmin to my bars and, if I had room, I would probably find space for something else too.
More often than not, I end up looking at something like this:
Mounts, mounts and more mounts… So much clutter!
Far from ideal, I really needed to find a tidier solution.
I ditched the urban light in favour of a helmet mounted Exposure Diablo but now I needed to just finish it off.
The problem was the big lump that is my Exposure Toro. Sitting atop my bars it just interferes with everything.
Fortunately, while browsing the USE Exposure site, I happened upon a new style of bracket the “Stem Fit Bracket”
This is just what I was looking for, though it would necessitate a little more work to fit the Garmin.
What do you get in the bag?
As you can see, there are a selection of bolts, some washers and the bracket itself. As there were no instructions it took a couple of minutes to work out what you are supposed to do. I am not the most mechanically adept of people so bear with me if it all looks obvious to you.
Assemble the bracket using the smallest bolt in the bag. Make sure it won’t fall off but don’t nip it up tight yet.
Remove the top two bolts from your stem clamp. Select the appropriate bolts from the selection in the bag, take two washers and off you go.
The washers sit in between the (light) clamp and the stem.
Tighten the bolts up to the recommended torque and you are almost ready to go.
At this stage, I suggest you fit your light and work out what angle you want it to sit at. Once happy, this is where you nip up the bolt. You should now be ready to ride but I recommend you take a trail tool with you for fine tuning.
The end result
I hadn’t really thought it all through. My light was now neatly perched on the stem. The handlebars were tidy but my ‘out front’ Garmin bracket was obsolete. The Garmin fitted to the stem using the supplied bracket and rubber bands. It works but it isn’t very elegant.
Even placed as far back as I can, the Garmin interferes with the light, or is it the other way round? I have had to point the light rather more acutely towards the ground than I’d like but it should be workable. The Garmin has been adorned with a double thickness of gaffer tape where there is danger of them rubbing together.
There. That’s much tidier!
The result is far neater than I had anticipated. In future, riding at night will be a studied expression of minimalism, well at least until I find something new to clamp on my bars!
At a few pennies short of £25.00 this might seem a trifle expensive but I think it is worth it. Exposure always deliver with nicely thought out, perfectly presented kit and this is no exception.
I definitely recommend this if you want to tidy up your bars for riding at night. Obviously you need to have a light that will fit the bracket and in case you wondered, yes… it has to be an Exposure.
Note: John purchased the Exposure Stem Fit Bracket with his own hard earned pocket money. We were not bribed nor paid for this review and we strive to give our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.
Exposure Stem Fit Bracket
£24.95
Last modified: 16th January 2018
Could you not mount it ‘upside down’ to how you have done – and the mount on the lower clamp bolts, the light hanging beneath the stem (you may need to shuffle the cables slightly) – then the garmnin can sit out in front and everything will look lovely and neat.
I have the same thoughts as Keith. It’s how I always envisioned the bracket working. Would love to see an update to hear about how much the light protrudes below the stem and how that works with potentially fouling modern under the bar tape cabling.
Use a gravity top cap mount for the Garmin, problem solved.
Would this work with a Thomson x4? The bolts are slimmer, but the only stem I have that would possibly do (3T Apto and Thomson x2 are definite non-starters)
Perhaps, in theory. Having spoken to Exposure for you this is what they had to say. “You’ll need to get longer bolts that still fit into the stem (assuming you mean it’s a smaller bolt M3 etc) the bracket comes with different length bolts spacers to accommodate slightly different face plate shapes”
Hope that helps, any other questions for technical solutions will do our best to help.
Michael
choosing the right bracket to mount an exposure light + any other bar mounted goodies is a bit of a mine field, the trial and error can become a tad expensive, still not hit the sweet spot yet. Light mounted centrally with space for everything else is a bit like finding the holy grail 😉