This week I had an accident on my bike and crashed in the rain on my commute to work. No damage to my bike… or to me. But my Garmin Edge 1030 bike computer came off the worst, getting detached from its mount on impact, and damaging the mount in the process.
For those who don’t know, Garmin Edge bike computers use a quarter-mount system to lock them in place, with moulded plastic on the rear of the computer slotting into a mount that you attach to your bike. This lets you attach and detach the computer from the bike very easily. It also means you can mount your computer to many different bikes. But when the “wings” of the mount break off, your bike computer will no longer attach to a mount.
Years ago I had a similar problem and it simply wasn’t something Garmin could fix. At the time, I was in warranty and they supplied me with a replacement. I’m long out of warranty now, and while my Edge 1030 has been superseded by a couple of newer models, it still works. And those newer models are expensive.
Hunting around around online found a well-reviewed company in the US called Dog Ears who make a smart replacement, but I could find no UK retailers, and I didn’t want to wait for weeks for international post.
On Amazon I found a company called Trigo selling what looked to be a suitable replacement in a kit. But it had no reviews, and I couldn’t find any YouTube videos showing how to use it. Indeed, I couldn’t find many YouTube videos showing any kind of fix.
So, I ordered the kit from Amazon which arrived the same day, and shot the video below. The replacement part used a couple of screws to attach it, and I supplemented this with some hot glue to keep water out of the rear of the bike computer.
The finished product means that the replacement mount sits a little prouder of the bike computer than the old one. But it seems very firmly attached and hopefully extends the life of my Garmin bike computer.
[Update 11/11/2022]
However, there was a problem. I went for a long ride – in very wet conditions as it happened. I noticed by the end of the ride there was some small amount of movement on my Garmin. When I tried to remove the bike computer, the replacement mount detached itself entirely from the bike computer. The two small screws completely popped out.
My second attempt at a solution looks like it’s more successful. I used Gorilla Epoxy glue to attach the mount to the computer. Although the glue claims to set in 5 minutes, I clamped the mount up for 24 hours and that seemed to do the trick. Several bike rides later, it’s still firmly attached.
I’ll probably replace the computer at some stage however…
Hopefully, some will find this useful!