By Rachel Sokal
Wide and fat bars with short chunky stems may have sharpened bike handling but they’ve also had the unintended consequence of the Garmin mountability challenge. No longer is there room to loop the mount round your stem – especially if you have a larger unit – and just how can you prevent the thing swinging round your bars when hurtling down the trail? Fear not, K-Edge have produced a stem mount to overcome this First World problem (I am not judging you; I have spent more time than is healthy attempting to secure my Garmin in place).
The CNC machined aluminium MTB Stem Mount (Adjustable) attaches to the steerer tube by replacing a 5mm spacer with the actual device mount positioned over the stem. The spacer design is a simple but nifty one which holds the mount securely and neatly in place.
The Garmin itself sits in a fairly protected position; it doesn’t protrude forward over the bars (even with my larger 800 version and 50mm stem) and is protected from below by the body of the stem. I’ve crashed on a number of times and not knocked it off yet – just don’t forget to remove it if you need to turn your bike upside down for puncture duties.
The Stem Mount fitted nicely on the various stem lengths (60 to 90mm) and angles (-4° to +4°) on my bikes with 31.8mm bars. A small bolt allows you to angle the mount so to accommodate for various stem angles although I’ve not changed the position for any of the bikes I’ve run it on (a non-pivoted version is also available). The movement isn’t enough to accommodate the larger body of a 35mm diameter clamp on a 50mm stem if the mount spacer is stacked directly above the stem (even when using a smaller Garmin 500). As I’ve yet to cut down the steerer tube on this particular bike I’ve put it on top of a 10mm spacer for now and it fits fine but once the hacksaw comes out, the mount will have to go. It is possible to run the mount at 90° to the stem so your Garmin will sit behind the bars. This approach gets around the chunky stem issue but leaves your device a bit vulnerable to being smacked by your knee cap (or vice versa).
Overall: A relatively secure and stable Garmin mount that can accommodate for many, but not all, stem/bar combinations.
Review Info
| Brand: | K-Edge |
| Product: | Garmin MTB Stem Mount |
| From: | www.madison.co.uk |
| Price: | £34.99 |
| Tested: | by Rachel Sokal for One month |
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Expensive solution to non problem imho. I sit my Garmin on the top tube using the (supplied) mount + O-rings. Has survived a multitude of crashes (I’m overambitious & not very good…) with no damage to GPS. Which is more than I can say for my hands/wrists/legs/hips/shoulders/etc..