[Cyclopath]

It's time to put the lights back on the bike. I'm not really keen on giving up the space on my bars, though. Does anybody have a good way to mount a light to an out front mount? Ideally the Enve one? In a perfect world I'd prefer the light to hang from the bottom of the mount, but I'll be happy even to use the quarter-twist part if I have to.

[filbert]

My light is mounted to the fork crown (where a sidepull brake would be mounted). I brazed a custom bracket, sorry no idea about the Enve. Having the light relatively low helps create better road-object shadows than a bar-mounted (or worse, a helmet-mounted) light.

[InFlight]

Search for a water bottle cage adapter. These are tube clamps with the two normal bosses for mounting water bottles. Should be easy enough to mount a light to. You could clamp the light around the head tube. Wrap it first with some painters tape to protect the paint.

[Cyclopath]

Thanks for the ideas folks. I considered putting the light on the fork but since it gets narrower as it goes lower, I don't think that will work. But immediately above the brake might work. I'd really prefer to use an out front mount because I can attach that to my stem's face plate. Which means it takes nothing away from my bars, but I can still adjust the light while I ride if I need to.

[Randito]

http://www.minoura.jp/english/accessory/accessory.html Minoura makes are variety of creative light holders. Sadly the fork blade clamp LH-50 Besso that they used to make no longer seems to be available, but maybe some local bike shops still have some in inventory.

[Cyclopath]

Really prefer to use the stem face plate like this:

Enve out front mount

It's probably a lot more secure than a clamp and won't scratch the paint. Problem is I need to find a light that accepts a quarter-turn mount, or even better goes underneath one somehow.

[Brucester]

Aero bars? I've been thinking of putting these bars on my wood chipper bars for yet more places to rest on long rides and maybe additional places for lights. I found out that my Planet Bike one watt light interfered with my bike computer, so I need to separate them. Also it provides a place for hanging a sleeping bag/ bivy sack if you'd want to do a summer overnighter.

[Randito]

FWIW: The groovy thing about the discontinued fork mount clamp is that by placing the light a couple of feet lower is that it casts longer shadows of junk lying on the road surface -- and because the light is mounted several feet from your eyes, you can actually see those shadows. One of the downsides of helmet mounted headlamps is that you don't see the shadows cast by the light, so I am not able to judge the terrain as well. But with the rise in popularity of carbon and bladed forks -- which the fork clamp doesn't work well on....

[cartman]

Can't help you on your mount, but something like a Serfas Thunderbolt which uses rubber "bands" to wrap around the bar won't scratch your paint.

[Fedor]

Have you considered using a headlamp while riding? I started riding with my headlamp probably around a year ago and love it. For me it's superior to a mounted light in every way. Part of it may be that I had an old, cheap headlight on my bicycle and a new, nice usb rechargeable headlamp replacement.

[boot up]

[trestle]

This may not be of much help but I can vouch for their security, versatility, and scratch-free mounting. I like how it can be unmounted and propped up as a light stand. It was less than $15 and easy to find. https://www.niteize.com/product/Lite-Ride-Gear-Tie.asp

[DIYSteve]

Dynohub-powered high powered LED headlight out front on custom front rack is the ideal setup, but AFAIK can't be done with a carbon fork. I built a custom fork and rack to covert my wife's road frame (which I also built) into a randonneur setup. I equipped it with Shutter Precision dynohub + Supernova E3. Sweet setup. It worked well for her on the 2016 Cascade 1200. Surly makes some nice affordable cromo forks with braze-on front rack mounts. All are 1-1/8" steerer conventional headset and 100mm standard hub width/dropouts. Disc or canti brakes. Several axle-to-crown distances to fit lots of frames without screwing up steering geometry.

[Cyclopath]

Turns out there are some mounts on the market already that come very close to what I want. Not sure any of them is right for me but I think I can work a few pieces together and come up with an ideal solution. Barfly makes a light makes a light that comes with an out front mount:

They make a "universal mount" too:

What I don't like about these is that they still attach to the handlebars, although they take up less room than the light itself would. The Enve mount screws directly into the stem which is a cleaner solution. But I bet it can be adapted to hang a light securely like these.

[Brucester]

I bought this 50 led light for mountain biking at night years ago. I used this rubber band strap that's used for attaching headlamps to hardhats to attach it to the head tube. It worked well on roads but vibrated too much for trail use. More of a flood beam, nice to illuminate dark city paths.