Womo Designs Bar Mount Kit – first look

Hey technoweenies! You know how it is. You have more telemetry capability on your bike than the Mars Rover. The electronics alone cost more than the rails of the next three wheel-suckers on your last club run and there’s nowhere to put it unless you resort to cow-horn handlebars.

I mean, handlebar real estate is getting scarce and you really don’t want to resort to a duct-tape lash up or TIG welding gear … Well, do you? Do you?

The bracket can be fitted with a variety of adaptors

So, here it is. The Womo Designs Bar Mount Kit with adaptors for just about every biketronic device going, including a dual mount kit so you can roll virtually any combination in one spot.

Here it is fitted with a GPS adaptor on top and a camera adaptor below

In my case it’s combining a Garmin Edge GPS unit and Virb camera.

Currently, there are adaptors for iBike Newton, Nite-Rider lights, a universal adaptor, a kit for BMX type handlebars and more are in the pipeline.

First off. The device is extremely solid. I have no problems with bolting my very expensive electro-bikey gubbins to this unit. In fact, if it were some sort of safety device I’d be climbing Annapurna with it, no problem.

The bracket bolts on to a standard 31.80mm road bike handlebar, wide enough to clear the stem, but narrow enough to clamp firmly onto the thick butt of the bar. If you’re using carbon bars it’s especially wise to observe the torque settings on the bolts. You carbon guys do have a torque wrench, dontcha?

You may have to do a little wrangling to get your gear and brake cables routed smoothly around the bracket, but this was easily do-able with just a little thought without totally re-installing them.

The adaptors fit by means of allen bolts into nice brass threaded inserts. The Garmin adaptor seems to be machined from aluminium and the cam adaptor CNC’d from some sort of durable high density plastic material with another brass insert which takes a standard POV cam thumbscrew. Both seem well up to the job *see below.

The Womo with Edge and Virb attached

I fitted a Garmin GPS adaptor above and a POV cam adaptor below. The cam adaptor seems to be of the GoPro type, but since this has become the de facto standard there was no problem fitting a Virb.

The Womo holds the units out in front of the stem, like many after-market GPS supports. It’s easily adjustable to permit a good view of the GPS unit. The adjustment on the cam mount takes care of aiming it accurately in the right direction.

The on/off control on the cam is accessible, although, being a technoweenie yourself you’ll know that most functions are probably more easily and safely available through your GPS head unit, remote or smartphone. However, your cam does have to have the facility to video inverted since it will, in this case, have to run up-side-down.

The issue I have with hanging the cam under the bracket is the possibility that a severe jolt, a pothole for instance, might dislodge the camera and leave you watching your gizmo bounce off down the street to the sympathetic laughter of your so-called friends.

That’ll give them something to look at at the coffee stop

I made some quick release tethers from some cell-phone straps I bought on the eBay. It said five for $5. It actually meant 5 dozen, so I have plenty to experiment with. Anyway, you might see them on a couple of the images.

The bracket holds both devices dead square on centre so there are no irritating misalignments for someone like me who’s a little OCD about his bikes.

So. There it is. No road test yet, although it’s hard to see being able to say anything more than it does exactly what it says on the can. But I’ll come back at some point and let you know how it’s standing up.

*22nd December 2014. I’ve been informed that the bar mount chassis is 6061 t6 aluminium and the cam adaptor is machined from Delrin.