GoPro Mount Failures

meanredspider

Whilst riding a road bike on the road, my GoPro bar mount failed. The camera fell off the bike, the case opened and bits of the camera itself spilled across the road. I collected most bits but didn't notice that the memory card had pinged out (lost footage of me doing nearly 60mph down from Glenshee ski centre).

Anyhow, I contacted GoPro about the mount failure and they responed saying that the mount was outside the 1 year warranty period and would only offer me 20% off the RRP of a new one.

What did concern me is that they said the following:

I believe it's a common occurrence when they are overtightened

Now, I've found that unless the linkages are reasonably tight, the camera flops down pretty quickly. It seems a very poor design. But now I know that "overtightening" the brackets can cause failure, I really have no confidence in the product. I use the camera in my race car and the idea of the thing falling up under braking/cornering and ending up under the pedals scares me to death. It would have been pretty nasty if the camera had fallen off under the wheels of the bikes following me down from Glenshee.

Has anybody else experienced issues with the GoPro mounts? I like the cameras but I've always found the mounts very poor (I use a Manfrotto mount in my car) especially since it's an "action camera" and the GoPro customer service terrible.

oodboo

meanredspider wrote:

Whilst riding a road bike on the road.

There's the problem. Should've been on a mountain bike, in the mud. Softer landing for the camera so it'd probably still be ok.

VWsurfbum

oodboo wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Whilst riding a road bike on the road.

There's the problem. Should've been on a mountain bike, in the mud. Softer landing for the camera so it'd probably still be ok.

Very much this.
Go pro's are manly things, it was commiting suicide by being made to be used on such a gay bike.

bennett_346

What a gay bike.

meanredspider

VWsurfbum wrote:

oodboo wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Whilst riding a road bike on the road.

There's the problem. Should've been on a mountain bike, in the mud. Softer landing for the camera so it'd probably still be ok.

Very much this.
Go pro's are manly things, it was commiting suicide by being made to be used on such a gay bike.

Are you saying you guys only ride MTB because it's a "manly" soft landing when you fall off? And you can never reach 60mph anyway?

I tend not to use my GoPro on my MTB because it doesn't work too well in the dark and the Strathpuffer 24hr is mostly in the dark - but riding in the dark in the Highland winter probably isn't manly either

VWsurfbum

meanredspider wrote:

VWsurfbum wrote:

oodboo wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Whilst riding a road bike on the road.

There's the problem. Should've been on a mountain bike, in the mud. Softer landing for the camera so it'd probably still be ok.

Very much this.
Go pro's are manly things, it was commiting suicide by being made to be used on such a gay bike.

Are you saying you guys only ride MTB because it's a "manly" soft landing when you fall off? And you can never reach 60mph anyway?

I tend not to use my GoPro on my MTB because it doesn't work too well in the dark and the Strathpuffer 24hr is mostly in the dark - but riding in the dark in the Highland winter probably isn't manly either

basically yes

meanredspider

Any sensible answers? I know I've posted in entirely the wrong place for sensible answers and, in my defence, I was riding down from a 2200ft ski centre on a road bike hoping to be an MTB by having disc brakes and it was the worst storm the UK has seen for 30 years so it does limit the amount of "gayness" involved....

360

meanredspider wrote:

Are you saying you guys only ride MTB because it's a "manly" soft landing when you fall off? And you can never reach 60mph anyway?

I tend not to use my GoPro on my MTB because it doesn't work too well in the dark and the Strathpuffer 24hr is mostly in the dark - but riding in the dark in the Highland winter probably isn't manly either

60Mph on a mtb? no problem.

I've never had any problems with gopro grip mounts. The sticky pads are a different matter though. I lost a gopro off my car somewhere in wales a couple of years back.

VWsurfbum

meanredspider wrote:

Any sensible answers? I know I've posted in entirely the wrong place for sensible answers and, in my defence, I was riding down from a 2200ft ski centre on a road bike hoping to be an MTB by having disc brakes and it was the worst storm the UK has seen for 30 years so it does limit the amount of "gayness" involved....

Sounds to me like your compensating for something?

meanredspider

360 wrote:

60Mph on a mtb? no problem.

Genuinely interested to see the data on that - it took quite a slope and quite a tuck on a road bike (not to mention a gale (literally) of a tailwind to reach - so I'm genuinely interested in what it would take on an MTB (I was riding with a championship MTB downhiller at the time)

360 wrote:

I've never had any problems with gopro grip mounts. The sticky pads are a different matter though. I lost a gopro off my car somewhere in wales a couple of years back.

Hmm - I'd never trust one of those stickies on a car without a tether.

cooldad

meanredspider wrote:

Any sensible answers? I know I've posted in entirely the wrong place for sensible answers and, in my defence, I post them online for all my pervy friends to watch http://www.tightlycrabutts.com

mak3m

cooldad

On a more serious note, mong posts in cruddie about riding a road bike.
Wonder where he escaped from, and if he's a danger to others or just himself. I think we need to know.

meanredspider

VWsurfbum wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Any sensible answers? I know I've posted in entirely the wrong place for sensible answers and, in my defence, I was riding down from a 2200ft ski centre on a road bike hoping to be an MTB by having disc brakes and it was the worst storm the UK has seen for 30 years so it does limit the amount of "gayness" involved....

Sounds to me like your compensating for something?

Nope - just raising money for charity by riding from Inverness to Livingstone (180 miles) in 12 hours straight, over the Cairngorms, in, what turned out to be, some pretty shocking weather on Tuesday.

meanredspider

cooldad wrote:

On a more serious note, mong posts in cruddie about riding a road bike.
Wonder where he escaped from, and if he's a danger to others or just himself. I think we need to know.

Fair point - I'll come back in January before I do the Puffer again

cooldad

Missing you already.

VWsurfbum

meanredspider

cooldad wrote:

Missing you already.

Aw - don't worry, I'll pop round at the weekend when I'm passing that concrete and roundabout Mecca of MTB that is Bracknell

cooldad

I'll expect you right after your breakfast of deep fried porridge. Unless your heart explodes first.

Briggo

Gay bike

Gazlar

meanredspider wrote:

Strathpuffer .

Sounds a gay place to be, besides isnt road bike rilming essentially just the recording of the guys derriere in front of you, packed into tight fitting lycra

which incidentally is gay also

Northwind

So... Where did it fail? And how many products do you think you can wilfully overtighten without having them eventually fail?

paul.skibum

I once broke a bolt in my car engine from over tightening it - I wrote to VW about it but they never replied. So I guess GoPro are one up on them.

I think everyone should post about all the manly things they have done on their bikes, speeds reached, distances covered in short time scales, heights ascended and descended and the professional riders they have done it with. It makes great reading especially late at night when I cant get to sleep.

cat_with_no_tail

I did a flower arranging course with Brendan Fairclough*




*may not be true