Fixing my F5 to the handle bar a good idea?

Pavlinux, thanks for your post, but what am I looking at?

Do you want to say that you kinda cushioned your watch to soften the beating?

Dear all,

I've just been finalising my road bike set up with the speed and cadence sensor and, lastly, I put the Garmin Bike Mount onto my road bike's handle bar.

Then a dreadfull idea shot through my mind: given the hefty mass of the Fenix 5 Sapphir and the delicate electronic AND sensors inside of it, is it actually a good idea to keep the watch fixed to the handle bar?!?! Only imagining riding over a cobble stone segment gives me the creeps.

So, I wonder whether is it eventually a good idea to place/fix such a watch onto the road bike's handle bar?

Cheers!

Garmin's dedicated bike units have similar electronics and are considerably heavier than the watch, and they seem to do fine. In any event, the mass of the watch will tend to keep it returning to the mount.

With the bike mount, it would require the watch strap to fail to lose the watch. Any failure of the bike mount would still leave the watch hanging from the handlebars. If you are concerned about the vibration and security and what might happen in the event of strap failure, taping the strap to the mount might give some peace of mind.

I have been using a bar mount and a watch on my road bike for 2.5 years without a concern. I don't do cobbles, but after your post, I might start taping my watch for gravel rides.

Or.... get one of these for a £4.99.

Me and the missus have one on both our offload and road bikes. Dirt cheap and makes it easy to secure your watch to the bike. A rubberised wrist for the handlebars!

Edit.

The watch is protected by a rubberised bumper to stop cable rub. The mount compresses so you can get a good tight fit and the straps don't slide around the rubber holder. I can easily press the buttons without the watch moving and I've been down some well bumpy offload tracks at 35mph + and it's been fine.

Or.... get one of these for a £4.99.

Me and the missus have one on both or offload and road bikes. Dirt cheap and makes it easy to secure your watch to the bike. A rubberised wrist for the handlebars!

Edit.

The watch is protected by a rubberised bumper to stop cable rub. The mount compresses so you can get a good tight fit and the straps don't slide around the rubber holder. I can easily press the buttons without the watch moving and I've been down some well bumpy offload tracks at 35mph + and it's been fine.

I have this on my mountainbike. Works very fine. But to my mind should/can be improved because there is no protection if you crash with the bike. When it goes downhill I put the watch on my arm which is really no problem.

OK folks, seems that I caused a small misunderstanding:

I do actually own that exact Garmin mount kit and the issue I'm concerned with isn't whether the watch would fall off/detach during the ride. On the contrary, when attached the watch is rock solid fixed to the handle bar.

The possible problem is this: will the undamped shocks and vibrations harm the F5's electronics - especially the gyroscopes if there are any - when attached to such dedicated mount kit.

During this morning's ride I thought that maybe if coushened the watch with some kind of silicon pads along the strap and the watch body itself that'd do the job.

I also stumbled upon this thread while looking into that issue but there's no real closure to it there.

Garmin sell a QuickRelease kit for the 935 (which is similar in terms of electronics) so they must be quite confident it is fine with the shock and vibration

CW

OK folks, seems that I caused a small misunderstanding:

I do actually own that exact Garmin mount kit and the issue I'm concerned with isn't whether the watch would fall off/detach during the ride. On the contrary, when attached the watch is rock solid fixed to the handle bar.

The possible problem is this: will the undamped shocks and vibrations harm the F5's electronics - especially the gyroscopes if there are any - when attached to such dedicated mount kit.

During this morning's ride I thought that maybe if coushened the watch with some kind of silicon pads along the strap and the watch body itself that'd do the job.

I also stumbled upon this thread while looking into that issue but there's no real closure to it there.

Drop them an email see what they think. but I would imagine, as they sell the mount with the the Fenix in mind, that they are confident that it will handle bike vibrations. Extreme shock would be something that is a direct hit to the watch or, dropping it rather than bike vibrations. Your tyres, bike suspension (if MTB) and the silicon mount will absorb / smooth out the harshest vibrations. I've certainly never hand any problems with my Vivoactive HR or the F5 and both have been attached to my bikes a lot.

Don't know if it will help, but I discovered this stuff when I was trying to take the road shake out of my GoPro attached to the handlebars with one of those combination mounts. It helped a little, but didn't completely remove the shake, mostly because I couldn't match something really thick, say, greater than 3/16" on it. However, the stuff is really shock absorbing, and pretty cheap. it comes in various sizes, and thicknesses too. (No, I'm not the one selling, just took a while to discover this stuff)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SORBOTHANE-SHEET-4X4x1-8-100mmx100mmx3-2mm-VIBRATION-ISO-RUBBER-PAD-SQUARE-50D-/250989166427?hash=item3a701ebf5b

That isolation tape seems to be the way to go for me. However, Sorbothane strips are hard to get by where I live, and it's quite pricey, but any other kind of comparable but common material should do the job.
I believe that inserting an additional layer of something non-sticky like tinfoil or cloth is advised so as to prevent glueing the watch to the isolation layer.

As to trusting Garmin that shocks and vibrations are already counted in when attaching a F5 to their proprietary mount kit and it's supposedly harmless... Well, let's say I'm kinda cautious. Just take a look at the connectivity issues and it's clear we're more in the "dog eat dog" zone :rolleyes: