Bike Rack....Revisited

WilliamA

I did a bunch of moving bits around this spring including the traumatic (for me, anyway) removal of my roof rack. I'll not detail the pro's and con's of that here save to say that the trauma included the necessity of moving my fishing gear box and finding a different way to attach my bike seat-post clamp that I use when hauling it around. I got around to meddling with both yesterday.

This is how I've been hauling my bike around for the past 3 years or so. I've used this basic system for 2 different trailers and 2 distinctly different bicycles.

Here's the cheapo, front fork clamp that I use. I just bolted it to the top of my cargo box. When I'm not hauling my bike, I remove the axle clamp and put it back on the front tire where it came from. I've always meant to get a spare axle with hardware so I could just leave all the bits on, but that's not happened yet. It takes no more than a minute to swap the front wheel axle over from the tire to the mount. I had a different bike before my fattie and that required a different fork spacing. That previous fork mount had a dedicated through axle with a lock on it but this one is much less sophisticated. Fork spacing here is 130 mm. I should probably swap out the rusty bolts for some stainless stuff. After 2 years, I think it's safe to say that I'll keep it there. It's not often that something goes on and stays there for as long as this has. It deserves better hardware.

I have something of a fetish for not carrying my fishing gear inside my car or trailer. Those few who know me or have seen me on the road might be surprised to hear this since my rig usually looks like I just got back from Verdun during the siege of Fort Douamont. I draw the line at my fishing gear though. I like to have it secure in its own space where it doesn't make my vehicle smell any worse than it already does. I found the plastic gun-box a couple of years ago and decided it would be a handy thing for all of my fishing supplies. It's worked well and although it's a bit large for the job, suits the purpose. I moved it down off the roofrack and onto the top of my storage box, requiring a bit of reorganization of the rear-wheel tiedowns. Seems to work fine.

Since the storage box is pretty thin aluminum and the bike is mounted sideways instead of the long way, I needed some method to keep it from wobbling around up there. I came up with this broom-handle seat-post stay thinking that if it worked well, I'd make a proper one with carbon fiber tube and stainless hardware. Well, I've got half of that down. It works well. As to the high-tech, carbon fiber....meh....The broomhandle works fine. I'll get around to making a nice one sometime. The clamp is a broom-hanger clamp for putting brooms and mops, etc on the wall. works fine. I put the bungie cord on it just as a bit of extra insurance when being chased by Panzers and assorted ex-wives, but again, doubt it's really necessary.

Now that my trailers' bald pate lacks mounting points for my "stuff", I had to reach back into the bucket and come up with a new trailer-end mount for the broom handle. Again, same hardware. I just drilled a piece of aluminum flat stock and bolted on the broom handle hanger. The long, brass bolt also has a nylon wing-nut that goes on for security and again, probably doesn't need it. Just makes me feel better...

My Goldberg-signature bike rack has carried my bikes for thousands of miles in pretty much every kind of weather and proves to be a pretty safe, secure, handy spot for it. Yes, you need to pull the bike off to access the storage box. I rarely need to get into the storage box during roadwork and even so, should that be necessary, it takes only a few seconds to release it from there. After all, it's impossible to have every single thing handy without moving something else. One has to make sacrifices for the sake of gear.

Although I show the front tire up there bungie-corded to the bike, I rarely carry it there. My Jeep is never full so when traveling, I just throw the front tire for my bike in the back of the Jeep and let-er-buck....

WilliamA