Update on my Bike-Mount Failure: K-EDGE Comes Through

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 —
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Giving It Another Try

K-EDGE has restored my trust in its mount

Two weeks ago in “Pleasant Social Ride to Onyu Pass”
I reported about how the K-EDGE bicycle mount for my cycling computer and front video camera had failed on a bumpy downhill. I had been using a K-EDGE Garmin Mount XL to hold a Garmin Edge 820 and a Cycliq Fly12.

The summary of this followup is that I am now using another copy of the same mount, and that I think it can be trusted if
you don't touch the two screws joining the halves of the mount together. Details follow.

In the post two weeks ago, I included this photo showing the bike-side half of the mount with part of a
sheared-off bolt sticking out:

Nikon D4 + Venus 60mm Super Macro f/2.8 — 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 —
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Fate of the Earlier Mount

one bolt gone, the other ripped in half

Modern mounts from K-EDGE see to come in halves joined by two screws:

Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 6400 —
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Junction Between the Halves








Nikon D4 + Venus 60mm Super Macro f/2.8 — 1/640 sec, f/5.6, ISO 3600 —
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Accessory Side of the Mount

with holes for two screws

I suppose this two-part design makes it easier to offer a wide variety of bike-mount solutions, since
they don't have to design and manufacture every permutation of “attaches this way” and “supports these accessories”. Having
mutually-interchangeable halves lets them mix and match on the fly.

To recap about the failure I experienced two weeks ago, while riding down a very fast, bumpy descent,
the whole thing appeared to snap in half at a particularly nasty bump. Inspecting it later showed that
one of the pair of bolts had snapped, and that the other was missing. My guess is that one bolt had
worked loose at some point, leaving all the stresses to the other bolt, now compounded by the extra leverage the lack of the
second bolt created.

A few things lend credence to my theory. One is that some weeks/months back, during a less-bumpy ride, I had noticed that one of the bolts had worked loose. I was happy to catch it before it got lost, and tightened it up. So, a bolt working
loose is not without precedent.

Second is that the video of the descent prior to failure was ridiculously shaky... the extra “give” from the lost bolt showing up in the result.

What still perplexes me, though, is that after noticing the loose screw the first time, I used Loctite 222 to secure them both. I think that there
are more different Loctite products than atoms in the universe, but this seemed to be an appropriate one for this situation. Yet,
the screw was nowhere to be found. (Had the first screw also broken in half, part of it would have remained in the mount just as
part of the second screw remained in the mount.)

K-EDGE mounts are well respected, and the one
I had is highly rated at Amazon by what seem to be real reviews. The bolts
aside, it seems rock solid, so I sent them a note asking whether they had
a unibody version of the mount.

I didn't expect much. A different company (TiGRA), for example, didn't even response when I reached
out to them after their mount disintegrated, sending my iPhone 6+
smashing into the pavement.

But K-EDGE responded right away. They noted that they tend to see this kind of separation after a
crash. I suppose that in the case of a crash, such a
separation is a feature: the mount separates upon impact, lowering the stress on your
much-more-pricey bike and accessories (or, more importantly, giving way to your body being flung about instead of impaling a cycling computer in your gut).

In my note to them I didn't ask for anything but information, but in their first response they asked me to fill out a warranty/return form, and asked for more details about the failure. I sent them
a bunch of photos and the video that my Fly12 was taking at the time of the failure.

Their second response, which came equally quickly, is a model for excellent customer relations. They had never seen a failure
like this, which one supposes would make them skeptical of the story they were hearing, but if they harbored any suspicion, they
kept it to themselves. First they addressed the current situation: they said they were expressing me two copies of the mount (at
their expense, to my address in Japan, even though I had bought the mount in America), which I could do with what I wanted. They
noted that if I didn't trust the mount, I could sell them to fund whatever mount solution I might decide to go with. That last bit
about selling them showed me that they weren't just going through the “give him something to shut him up” motions. They truly
cared. Seth Godin would be proud. I was impressed.

Then on to why the mount failed in the first place. They said that thought that perhaps
“the bolts were over torqued causing them the break under extreme stress”.

This mention of “over torqued”
obviously means "we think you must be inhumanly strong... Superman must cower in your presences, and women must swoon at your devastating good looks". It's a plainly-superficial attempt to flatter, and, I must say, remarkably effective.