Friday, May 1, 2015

Avanti Inc 3: Kore Seatpost, Hope Seatpost Clamp, Camera Mount

With the rainy weather nowadays, the Avanti Inc 3 is now my most used bike and is currently my favourite bike. With a full array of rain proof features on the bike, it is the ideal bike to use for wet weather riding.

Besides riding the Avanti Inc 3 almost every day, I have also been upgrading the bike. Some of the recent upgrades include the Deore brake upgrade, the Ice-Tech brake rotor upgrade, and the red Gates CenterTrack belt upgrade.

Other than those upgrades, there are also some small modifications here and there, and here are a few more upgrades for the Avanti Inc 3.

1) Seatpost
All the while since I first got the bike, I have been using the stock seatpost that comes with the bike. However, it has recently been giving me a slight problem. There is an annoying creak from the seatpost area that keeps occuring whenever I load and unload my weight from the saddle.

The creak is not coming from the seatpost clamp or the saddle rails, and I finally deduced that it is probably coming from the press-fit joint between the clamp head of the seatpost and the tube of the seatpost. There seems to be some slight play which is causing the creak.


Stock seatpost, weighing a hefty 400 grams.

New Kore seatpost (31.6mm diameter), not too expensive, but looks quite decent.

A good clamp design that allows for fine angle adjustment

The new Kore seatpost is quite a bit lighter than the stock seatpost

Saving weight from the seatpost is not my primary concern with this bike, as it is pretty heavy with or without the seatpost. Main thing is, the new seatpost eliminated the creak, which is what is important for me.

2) Seatpost Clamp
This seatpost clamp upgrade is more of itchy fingers syndrome, as there is no need for a new seatpost clamp. However, I do like the QR design of this clamp, as it uses a good QR design with a brass washer to ensure proper clamping.

Hope seatpost clamp

34.9mm is the external diameter of the seat tube, which I measured before ordering the new clamp

My Hope seatpost clamp is plain boring black. It is also available in many other exciting colours.

Brass washer is used to ensure smooth and strong clamping

As installed on the bike, and seen with the new red Fizik seatpost ring

3) Camera Mount (For GoPro, Shimano Sport Camera)
The next accessory for my Avanti Inc 3 is the camera mount for GoPro cameras or Shimano Sport Cameras. It uses the 3 pronged clamp design first introduced by GoPro.

Besides mounting the Shimano camera on the Merida road bike and the Dahon Boardwalk folding bike, I would also like to mount the camera on my Avanti Inc 3. Thus I needed another camera mount in order to make it easy to move the camera across the different bikes.

As I am using the Shimano Sport Camera, I can use any GoPro mounting hardware to mount the Shimano camera. I had previously bought the K-Edge Go Big GoPro camera mount, but it is too expensive to buy another one of those.

Luckily, I have found some replica camera mounts available on Taobao, and it is just as good as the K-Edge versions except for a less impressive appearance.

Compact GoPro camera mount with no branding

Accepts the Mount A from the Shimano Sport Camera. This Mount A has a quick release catch that allows quick attachment and removal of the Shimano camera.

Quick and easy mounting of the Shimano camera

Open clamp design allows it to be attached easily to the handlebar

Some rearrangement of the accessories is needed to fit everything on the handlebar

The camera sticks out slightly in front of the handlebar

The clip for the Topeak Smartphone DryBag has been moved to the stem to make space on the handlebar for all the other accessories.

That's all for this upgrade post! New seatpost and seatpost clamp, and a new camera mount for the Shimano Sport Camera. Small upgrades now and then is helpful for making the bike feel new, and to keep my itchy hands occupied.

3 comments:

  1. Hi, was the old seatpost a zero offset one or one with offset? Doing some upgrades on my INC 2 at the moment, can't tell if the stock one is zero offset.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The old seat post has quite a bit of offset. The new one has less offset which I prefer.

      Delete
  2. Great, thanks for the super quick reply!

    ReplyDelete

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