Creating problems to solve

I like tidy cable routing.  Aesthetically pleasing black lines curving gracefully in a beautiful, almost static dance of harmony.  I've not achieved perfection in some time.  I take some of the blame, but j'accuse component and frame manufacturers for some of my issues.

I know Specialized likes their three input/one hole clean routing on the non-drive side of the Epic EVO, but a drooper should be rooted to the drive side, not only for aesthetic purposes, but also because of friction.  Obvs, IMHOMO. 

My three (now two) noodles never looked that good.

Shite cable rooting makes for equally shite number plate mounting.  Adding to the problem are the occasional monstrous number plates like the one at Shenandoah Mountain 100.

CHEW MAIL POUCH TOBACCO, anyone?

I went all Freddy Krueger on it trying to get it to work with all the impediments, and the gawdam thing still ended up behind the housing/line and rubbed against my head pipe for one hundred miles.  My current number plate holder just couldn't get the flippy laminated boy far enough away from the bars.

Time to rethink my current setup.

Ignore the Wahoo on the top pipe.  If you know, you know.  I'm aware that yinz all out there using zip ties and removing pieces parts of plates to accommodate the impediments, but... sigh.  You do you.

I've been searching for a better solution for awhile, and mebbe I have it.  Mebbe not.

What I'm replacing:

Two reflector brackets, nylon nuts and bolts, AND a Wahoo Elemnt mount... 54 grams.

What I'm replacing it with:

29 grams more or approximately six sheets of copier paper.

Yeth, this means going back to zip ties to hold it onto what is essentially a minibar.

But mebbe I won't have to chop the plate anymore.  I didn't bother digging around for a way older non-chopped plate to find out.

And I still have this added bonus:

Noted:  I used untidy twist ties because I didn't wanna waste two zip ties for blerhg display purposes.

I grab my bars at the stem when it's time to get roadie-drooped for full aero buenos.  Kinda hard to do that with the plate zip tied directly to the bars.  All that and I've been known to strap extra goods to my mount behind the number plate when doing events with gear requirements (PMBAR) or when I feel like an extra tube or something might be in order.

One more added benefit is that I can throw this on any bike and have a more stable place to strap on my puffy or other bulky layers if I'm headed out for a... the kinda something stupid that I do.

And before anyone says it, yeth, I considered just using one bracket.

but...

I worry that if I wrecked that the leverage on the unsupported side might bust my shit, so no.  Not doing that.

So that's how I wasted some of the valuable time I have left on this planet.

Reading about it is how you wasted yours.