Minoura Spacegrip SGS-300M

Joy beyond measure, Minoura have finally revised and improved their venerable Spacegrip.

The original Spacegrip performed a useful function, giving you extra bar room for lights and so forth, but was a complete horror to fit and had a reputation for being made of cheese. Between us my wife and I have three of them in various stages of dis-assembly, none actually attached to our bikes. I swear that when I clapped eyes on the new and improved MK2 hanging up in a bike shop I heard a choir of angels burst into song while a shaft of heavenly light illuminated the joyous object.

The reason for my excitement is that *finally* Minoura have figured out a way to make the Spacegrip quick release, which means fitting is a doddle and you can whip it off your bike complete with all the attached gubbins whenever you want. There's an allen bolt which expands the clamp according to the size of your bars and a simple clip which pulls the clamp shut and keeps it closed. It doesn't look very elegant but it works brilliantly. According to the blub, the clamp will work on bars from 35mm down to 28mm. There's also a version with a smaller diameter clamp, the SG-300s that fits bars from 22-29mm and both versions also come in a choice of a standard 100mm bar extension which will take two items or a longer 130mm option for Inspector Gadget types.

I fitted it to my Dawes Century which has challenging bars: huge, fat and ovalised. No problem, the Spacegrip locked on and stayed put, aided by the thin plastic shim tape that Minoura provide. The wiggle test demonstrated that it was very firmly fixed indeed. The heaviest front light I can think of is a Cateye HL-EL 300, which packs four AA batteries and is the size of a housebrick but even that wouldn't trouble the MK2. The extra space you get isn't enormous, enough for a couple of front lights, but with bar space at a premium and new widgets like GPSes to accommodate that extra 10cm (8.5cm if you discount the bit where it attached to the arm) is very handy indeed.

If you feel the need this new version of the Spacegrip can be fully disassembled and rebuilt with the bar rotated through 90 degrees.

The only downside is that it is a sinfully ugly object to slap on your bike, but if you value function over aesthetics and need space for that extra set of lights then there isn't anything better.

Verdict

Extremely useful and a massive improvement over the original Spacegrip.