Doormate 2 | Rob’s Inventions.
So I love to mess around with cycling gadgets. At one point in the long ago past I was validating power meters, running two or three power meters and multiple head units. But I never geeked out enough to engage someone in hours long conversation. I don’t know why, I just don’t like to talk about bikes and bike stuff for hours on end, probably something to do with my mom yelling at me as a kid for talking about bikes for hours on end.
But every now and then I want to talk about things I do like and use. Recently, with the nasty fall and winter weather rolling in, I was looking for a way to get in and out of the garage faster than having to run over to the garage keypad, type it in with wet or cold or wet AND cold hands or trying to beat that thunderstorm into the house!
I remembered a few years ago a company put a garage door opener out into the market that would replace your bar end plug. That was cool, but this wasn’t the exact solution I was looking for. But guess, what, that same company also now makes the Doormate 2. Now with more door mating I guess! I was pleasantly surprised to see they had created a similar product for flat bars. See, with the cargo bike taking Luca to and from school, or taking Ava on joyrides down to the office, to open or close the garage requires an extra step of putting the stand down. It’s not difficult, but it is a movement to shift the weight and feels like an extra step. So now I just roll out, and push the button on my handlebar and the door rolls down and I roll away.
The setup was pretty easy, using the learn button on the back of my garage door motor and there are two buttons you can set up, if you happen to be cool enough to have a second garage door and/or a gate at the front of your neighborhood. I could see the second button being useful for scenarios like that. I have neither, so this plebian just utilizes the one button. Maybe I could figure out how to utilize the loading dock at the office on a cold and wet day and roll up that garage? Who knows, a boy can dream.
The mount itself is pretty neat. I have it mounted on the handlebar with the included clip. But supposedly you can mount this on top of your top cap and into the steerer and still keep everything in compression. I like the idea of that, but not sure I’m ready to test that theory on the cargo bike with its oversized steerer and cap and extra weight I move and precious cargo.
I’m sure I could also have gotten a regular old small key fob clicker for cheaper, but this looks much cleaner and I do want to support cool people doing cool things.
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