Earlier this year, the iconic London bag makers Wizard Works released their first metal product—a new Umbra light mount. The design mounts directly to the fork crown, shifting a dynamo light lower and to either side of the wheel, providing a safer ride while running large bar bags. I received a pre-release mount to test before it even had an official name, and let me tell you, this was just the solution I'd been waiting for.
The Problem: Cockpit Clutter
A few years ago, my wife built up a Surly Midnight Special. With a custom pink sparkly paint job and lots of choice components, it quickly became nicknamed the Surly Super Special. It was a thing of beauty. However, the dynamo light mounted on the handlebars stuck out like a sore thumb. If you've seen the movie Wall-E, it looks just like his robotic eyes peeping up and bobbling around for everyone to see.
I love riding with a dynamo-powered light, I think they're fantastic for staying out all day (and night) and riding bikes worry-free, but the way this one is mounted just gets my goat. Sure, I could adjust the mount so the dynamo doesn't stick up so high and mighty, but the lowered light gets in the way of the handlebar bag—or is it vice-versa? It looks better, but it makes using the bag a challenge and is less pleasing to the eye. So, in the battle between bag usability, visual aesthetics, and nighttime visibility, bag usability always took precedence—until now!
The Solution: Wizard Works Umbra
With the Wizard Work's Umbra light mount, I have been able to get the dynamo light off the bars and mounted below the bag. The Umbra light mount attaches to the fork crown and can be affixed facing to the left or the right, depending on your preference. You can then bolt on your light to the mount using the included M5 hardware. The Umbra light mount weighs a meagre 35g, light enough to please the gram counters out there.
As mounts go, it's pretty straightforward to attach to your bike, even without instructions. It only took a small amount of trial and error to figure out what I was doing. Just make sure that you tighten the unit correctly to keep the mount nice and stable. The Umbra light mount is made from anodized aluminum CNC'd in the UK by Bentley Components and is available in black, silver, or wizardly purple. It's best suited for bikes with tires under 2.8” wide. This mount drops the light 50mm from the centre fender mount on the fork crown with an offset of 40mm.
Lighting The Way
Mounting lights to your fork is nothing new, but I'm not sure that I've seen a bit of gear designed for this exact purpose and one which happens to exactly suit my needs. The light sits at a decent height, plenty high enough to light up the gravel trails and be seen by traffic. As the light hangs down by your wheel, there is a small amount of light interference from the tyre—I haven't found this to be a huge issue out on the dirt, but if you're riding a bunch of singletrack, then this probably isn't for you. In fact, Wizard Works suggest on their site that this accessory isn't suitable for mountain biking.
Having ridden over a variety of smooth and chunky terrain during testing, it hasn't budged once and is nice and stable. The only time the mount has nudged out of place was in my (rather overcrowded) bike shed, where another bike was clumsily leaning against it. With this in mind, it's probably worth being mindful of where you lean your bike when using this mount, although it's a pretty quick and easy fix to re-centre the mount if it were to get knocked out of place.
Simple, Clever, and Worth It
As expected, the first batch sold out almost instantly—but at the time of publishing, there are still some mounts available from the second batch. Keep an eye on their website if you want to snag one before they're gone again. As promised, the mount creates plenty of room for a bag between the handlebars and your front wheel, freeing up space in your cockpit and maximizing the ease of use of your handlebar bag for only £50 (approximately $65 USD).
| ✓ Pros |
|---|
| Frees up space for large handlebar bags. |
| Clean, low-profile dynamo light placement. |
| Lightweight and easy to install. |
| ✕ Cons |
|---|
| Not ideal for mountain biking. |
