Cameras on Bikes
There are many reasons that you might want cameras on your bike. Maybe you want to document the conditions in your community to advocate for better cycling infrastructure. Maybe you want a record of what happened in case you end up in court after someone hits you with their car. Or maybe you just want to send your grandma a video of yourself skitching up a hill. Whatever the reason, bikes and cameras go together like pencil and paper, peanut butter and jelly, or cigarettes on patios. However, I’ve never found a good guide on how exactly to put them together. This is a collection of my notes from mounting cameras on bikes over the last few years.
None of the links in this article are affiliate links. If you buy one of these products I won’t get a dime. I’m not your bike mechanic, use this information at your own risk.
The Camera
I’ve never owned a proper GoPro. Nowadays there are lots of cheap GoPro knock-offs that are far more affordable but still use all the same mounting hardware. Are they as good as a GoPro? Probably not, but this article isn’t a camera review. Anyway, this has lead to a market with lots of options for mounting these cameras that are compatible with the GoPro mounts. For reference these are some of the cameras that I’ve used.
- AKASO EK7000
- SJCAM SJ4000
- AKASO V50 (discontinued - I found mine on eBay)
There are also bicycle specific cameras, more on those later.
The front of the bike
Strap it to the helmet
The fastest, easiest, and most affordable option is just to strap it to your helmet. Here you can see the Niewalda Vented Helmet Strap Mount in action. I personally don’t love the extra weight on my head but some people like it since you can frame the shot by looking around. This will give you a truly POV video to send to your local city councilperson to explain how great your bicycle commute is.
Mount it to the stem cap
This is probably my favorite way to mount a GoPro style camera to the front of a bike, with the K-edge Go Big Gopro Top Cap. This top cap mount just replaces the top cap in a normal 1 1/8” threadless headset.
Quick release mounts
So now you can mount your camera to your top cap, but what if you lock your bike up outside the store to buy some groceries? You really don’t want to leave your camera just sitting out on the curb. The best product I’ve found to add a quick release is the SUREWO Magnetic & Swivel Lock. These have a magnet and a twisting lock ring. Now you can easily disconnect your camera whenever you want to run into a café.
Out front mount
Maybe your cockpit setup isn’t conducive to the top cap mounting. There are also a profundity of “out front” camera mounts available. Some of them mount to your stem, others to your handle bars, and some of them include an additional cycle computer mount. The one that I use to this day is the GUB Bike Camera Mount.
Other options include the K-EDGE Wahoo Max Combo Mount which will let you mount the camera underneath a Wahoo cycling computer.
The back of the bike
You may or may not care about a rear facing camera, but I run one in case of a suboptimal interaction with a driver.
Saddle rail mount
The cheapest and probably most popular option is to mount the camera to the underside of your saddle. Here I have a ParaPace Bicycle Saddle Rail Camera Mount.
Rear rack mount
Though less common than the saddle rail mounts you can also find mounts that bolt to some rear racks. To use these mounts you’ll need two holes in your rear rack spaced 50mm apart. Here is a kLite Rear Qube Rack Mount.
Bike specific cameras
Nowadays I run the bike specific cameras made by Cycliq. I was mostly drawn to them for their superior battery life and slick mounting. I do not use the built in lights and instead run separate lights for maximum camera runtime. The cameras include their own quick release bayonet mount. Additionally there is a GoPro to Cyclic adaptor that will let you mount any Cyclic camera to any GoPro style mount. Here is my bike setup with the GUB mount and the Cycliq Fly12.
Here I have a Cycliq Fly6 mounted to the Cycliq “rear pannier mount”.
Although these Cycliq cameras are pretty slick with good battery life and nice mounting options it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. They are more expensive than other options and they aren’t known to be very reliable r/cycling: Anyone have a working cycliq fly6 gen3?. My own experience has been that Fly12 has been reliable and easy to use but my Fly6 stopped working after a little more than a year. Hopefully the new Fly6 Pro will be more reliable. Also note that they do go on sale sometimes. I don’t think that I paid full price for any of my Cycliq cameras.