Sunday, July 10, 2016

the art of the useful hack: light mount

My Rivendell All-Rounder came with fork eyelets (for attaching a front rack of some sort).
Since I don't use a front rack, I ignore them for years, until I installed a front basket and needed to move my headlight. I got a little "stub" mount (made in taiwain and sold under many brand names, mine's labeled Origin-8) and screwed it into the left-side fork eyelet. (Stock photo here shows it positioned at the dropout; mine was mounted higher-up at just above mid-blade, where it easily screwed in.)



It worked pretty well. Until it didn't. It kept getting bumped and when I tried to use the rack on the front of the Trimet bus, I had to remove the headlight to carefully fit the rack's hook over the front wheel.
So I decided I had to move it. I chose to re-install it higher up and under the basket proper to protect it from bumps and also to make it easier to negotiate Trimet's bus rack.

WALD makes very sturdy baskets, and even stronger basket struts. So it was simple to drill a hole into the left strut and affix the stub mount on the inside of the strut, shielding the light and aiming the beam slightly higher on the road.

To negotiate the curve of the strut, I added a leather washer inside the curve, then topped it with a couple of thick, flat metal washers that extend just beyond the width of the strut. The result is a light that sits perfectly perpendicular to the strut and aims the beam where I want it.

It also looks pretty neat.

 

The same fix could work for certain generator headlights, providing you route the cable carefully to avoid snags. And as you can see, there's plenty of room behind the light to slip in the bus rack wheel hook without fuss.

Happy riding!

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