RAM X-Grip Phone Mount Review: Holding a Phone Over 600 Miles

The night before I left for Myrtle Beach last spring, I stood in the garage and looked at my phone sitting on the workbench. I had a six-hundred-mile ride ahead of me, two days of interstate with an overnight stop in Virginia, and I still had not decided how to carry the thing. I had tried a cheap clamp mount the year before and watched it work loose somewhere around the West Virginia line. I did not want to spend the ride with a phone buzzing in my jacket pocket, useless for directions. That is when I bolted on the RAM MOUNTS X-Grip.

I am not the kind of rider who bolts a bunch of gear to the bars and calls it a day. The Chieftain stays close to stock because I like it that way. But a phone is the one thing I need on a long trip, for fuel stops, for the motel, for calling Linda when I hit Virginia. So the mount had to earn its place. It has.

How I've Used It

I bought the X-Grip at the start of last riding season, which makes it about a year and a half old now. It lives on the handlebar of my 2019 Indian Chieftain, bolted to the bar with the included U-bolt base and a medium RAM double socket arm. The phone sits in the spring-loaded X head, held by four rubber-capped arms at the corners.

Since then it has done two full Myrtle Beach trips, which is roughly six hundred miles each way with an overnight stop in Virginia, plus a lot of weekend rides around home. My phone is an iPhone, which falls inside the X-Grip's width range of 1.875 to 3.25 inches. I have ridden with it in sun, in rain, and through the kind of vibration that makes a loose mount announce itself in the first ten miles.

Linda rides pillion on the shorter runs and takes the car for the long trip south, so the phone is my navigation on the interstate. That means I am not testing this mount from the couch. I am depending on it to keep a phone worth real money attached to the bike at highway speed.

What the X-Grip Actually Is

The whole idea is simple. Four spring-loaded arms form an X, and each arm has a rubber cap that grips the corner of your phone. You stretch the arms open, set the phone in the middle, and let the springs pull the caps against the corners. The phone is held by tension, not by a clamp that squeezes the screen or covers the face. RAM MOUNTS calls it the X design, and it does exactly what it says: it holds the phone without hiding it.

The base is a U-bolt that clamps to handlebars and rails from half an inch to 1.25 inches in diameter. The arm is the medium B size RAM double socket arm, three inches long, which gives you a little adjustment so the phone sits where you can actually see it. The whole thing is rated to hold up to two pounds, which is more than enough for any phone I have ever owned.

It also comes with the pieces that keep it working. There is an optional tether you can attach to the phone as a backup, and a small tube of glue for the rubber caps. That last one matters more than it sounds, because the caps are the part that takes the abuse. The mount is backed by a lifetime warranty, which tells you the company expects it to last.

The tether lives on my phone full time now. It is a thin strap that clips to the mount, and it takes about ten seconds to attach. I will be honest: I did not use it the first season. After the second Myrtle Beach trip, I looked at the little rubber caps and decided the tether was cheap insurance. It does not change how the mount works. It just means that if the caps ever give out at speed, the phone stays with the bike instead of bouncing down the interstate.

Setting It Up

The setup is straightforward, but it rewards a little patience. The U-bolt base goes around the handlebar, and the two bolts snug down with a hex key. RAM MOUNTS includes the U-bolt sized for rails from half an inch to 1.25 inches, so it fits most bars without shims or cutting. I positioned the base so the arm reaches forward and the phone sits just above the gauges, where I can read it without dropping my chin.

The arm is the medium B size double socket arm, three inches long. The double socket is the part I like: it lets you adjust the angle at the base and the angle at the phone head independently. Once I found the position that worked, I marked it with a dab of paint, and I have not touched it since.

The last step is seating the phone. The X-Grip's four arms stretch open, and you press the phone into the middle until the rubber caps seat on all four corners. The first time, it feels like you are going to break something. You are not. The springs are heavy duty for a reason, and the mount is rated to hold up to two pounds. Seat it once in the garage, and you will know exactly how it should feel.

Six Hundred Miles of Vibration

The real test is not whether the mount holds a phone in your kitchen. It is whether it holds at mile 400 on a touring bike with the engine humming through the bars. The Chieftain is a smooth bike, but smooth is relative. At interstate speeds there is a constant, low vibration that will walk a cheap mount loose in an hour.

The X-Grip has not walked loose. The spring tension keeps the four rubber caps pressed into the corners of the phone, and that pressure does not change with the road. I check it at every fuel stop out of habit, and in two Myrtle Beach trips I have never found the phone sitting differently than when I set it.

That said, seating the phone takes a firm hand. You stretch the arms open, set the phone, and let the springs grab. The first few times I did it in the garage, I thought I was going to pop the phone out the other side. You get used to it, and the tether is there for the first few rides while you build the habit. Once the phone is seated, it is seated.

I also learned to trust it in the twisty bits. On the way down through Virginia there are stretches where you are on the brakes, off the brakes, leaning the bike through a series of corners. That is where a mount earns its keep or gets thrown in a saddlebag. The X-Grip held through all of it. The phone did not slide, the arm did not droop, and the U-bolt did not creep on the bar.

Rain, Heat, and the Stuff a Mount Has to Survive

I rode through a solid stretch of rain on the way back from Myrtle Beach last year, the kind where you pull over and wring out your gloves. The X-Grip does not shelter the phone from the weather. The whole point is that it does not hide the screen, so the phone takes the same rain you do. That is a tradeoff, not a flaw, but it is worth knowing before you buy.

The mount itself shrugged it off. The rubber caps stayed put, the U-bolt never loosened, and the arm kept its position. I have also left the bike sitting in the sun for a full day at a time, and the springs have not sagged or softened. The parts that wear are the rubber caps, and RAM MOUNTS knows it. That is why the box includes the glue tube, to keep the caps seated if they ever start to shift.

The one thing I will say against it: there is no vibration damping in this mount. It holds the phone firmly, which means you feel the engine through it. On my bike it is a nonissue, just a slight blur in the screen at certain revs. On a bike with harsher vibration, you might notice it more. The fix is not a different mount, just an awareness that the X-Grip is a holder, not a suspension system.

Cleaning it is simple. When the bike gets washed, I spray the mount like the rest of the bars, dry it with a rag, and that is it. There are no bearings to grease, no joints to tighten, no parts that need attention beyond the rubber caps. That is the sort of low maintenance I want from gear that lives outdoors.

What I'd Change

If I could change one thing, it would be the way the rubber caps wear. They are the only part of the mount that shows its age, and they are the part doing the actual gripping. The glue tube in the box is a band-aid, a good one, but I would rather buy a pack of replacement caps and be done with it.

The other thing is the firm push it takes to seat a phone. It is not a problem, exactly, but it is a surprise the first time. If you have arthritis in your hands or you are trying to mount the phone one-handed while the bike is running, the X-Grip will fight you. Seat it in the garage, before you gear up, and it is a nonissue.

And a thick phone case can be a problem. The X-Grip holds phones from 1.875 to 3.25 inches wide, and a phone wearing a beefy protective case sits at the top of that range. My phone fits with a thin case. If you run a rugged case, measure it before you order.

One more small thing: there is no quick release. You cannot pop the phone off with one hand when you park. You stretch the arms open the same way you put it in. It takes five seconds, but it is five seconds you will spend every time you leave the bike. If you stop a lot, you will get very fast at it.

Two Myrtle Beach trips, a lot of weekend rides, and the phone never once came loose. That is the whole review in one sentence.

Who This Is For

If you ride a touring bike or a commuter and you want your phone where you can glance at it without taking your eyes off the road, the X-Grip is for you. It suits riders who check directions at speed, who want the screen visible, and who are willing to spend two minutes in the garage seating the phone properly. It is also for anyone who has been burned by a cheap mount and wants the thing that has a lifetime warranty and a track record.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if you want a mount that is fully waterproof, because the X-Grip leaves the phone exposed to the weather. Skip it if you want one-handed mounting on the side of the road, because this mount wants two hands and a firm push. And skip it if your phone wears a thick rugged case, because the width range is what it is. None of those are failures of the mount. They are just the wrong job for it.