Pro Mount Billet

I’ve always mounted my GPS in the middle of the handlebar stem. It just seems tidier than fitting it to the bars and it leaves more space for other things, like lights for example. However, current trends towards longer top tubes and shorter stems make stem mounting a challenge; my current bike has a 50mm stem and there’s simply no room to fit a GPS. When I saw the Pro Mount Billet ‘Enduro Mount’, it looked like the ideal solution. Made from machined aluminium, it replaces your existing headset preload cap and sits the GPS conveniently on top of the stem.

Pro Mount Billet is the brainchild of Aussie mountain biker and mechanical engineer Michael Vanos. Currently the Pro Mount Billet mounts are only made for Garmin GPS devices but Michael hopes to expand and cater for Bryton and Magellan users too. In addition to the Enduro Mount, Pro Mount Billet also has a mount that clamps to the handlebar and places the GPS in front of the bike, and another one that fits under the headset cap and places the GPS over the middle of the stem (it only works with stems that are 80mm and up, or with negative rise stems).

Pro Mount also makes a wide range of machined alloy GoPro camera mounts for different spots on your bike; under the back of the saddle, inside the frame on the bottle mounts and on the bars. We had a play with some of these and they are far more secure than the regular nylon GoPro mounts, producing comparatively vibration free footage.

However, our main focus here is the Enduro Garmin Mount. The machined base is nicely finished with laser-etched logos and it comes with good quality mounting hardware—the $40 asking price seems quite reasonable when you see it. The Garmin fits as per normal but the twist-lock action is noticeably tighter. Pro Mount Billet uses a machined acetal insert (a hard plastic) that offers a tighter-tolerance fit with the GPS. In the past I’ve lost GPS devices when they’ve been bumped and dislodged whilst riding—this seems far less likely with the Pro Mount Billet. It’s certainly way more secure than the rubber O-ring mounting that Garmin provides.

Initially this seemed like a great feature, but one crash saw the stem-mounted GPS hit the dirt. Rather than slipping or coming undone, the impact tore the tabs off the back of my Garmin rendering it useless. Maybe I was plain unlucky but Michael is now looking at machining back the replaceable plastic insert to make it the failure point, rather than the expensive GPS. Hopefully this is achievable as the Enduro Mount presents a really tidy mounting solution if you run a short stem on your mountain bike.

Pro Mount Billet www.promountbillet.com