The Real Know How

From Bruce Thomson in New Zealand:

“A strong carrier with vertical steel bars can carry even a guitar plus a banjo plus a backpack (or similar otherwise ‘impossible’ loads. As in the previous video ‘ Cheapest strongest bicycle trailer ‘ this vid enables you to survive very well without a car.

This vertical rack saves you having to tow a trailer (less weight and bulk, less tyre drag, no need to chain a trailer with your bike). Buy a really strong, wide carrier – sometimes at garage sales or 2nd hand shops, but new at bike shops (in New Zealand about $60, groan, but worth it.)

Ask a friend or any local mechanic to weld a flat bar that extends the carrier to the seat post, and some struts that prevent the carrier wobbling side to side. (Scrounge around or go to a scrap metal place to provide the metal at no/low cost.

Basket can be from an old fridge, garage sale, hardware megastore or a shop-outfitting equipment specialist. For the vertical bars, scrounge a lawnmower push handle or similar. They’re pipe, but strong and lightweight. To bind it all together, tie with bicycle tubes cut with scissors end-to-end.

Also note the bike stand – two legs, so the bike can stand up by itself, very handy when loading. Available sometimes at garage sales, or new from shop in NZ about $40.

CAUTION: As with any car loading, be sure to tie your loads very securely with rubber straps. Risks: Heavy load wobbling in traffic, dangling straps can get into the back hub or derailleur, suddently crippling the bike in traffic.

Tie tight, with some EXTRA straps in case one fails. Then face that deadly traffic confident your load is really secure. At the time of writing my left leg is still aching from the steel pin the surgeon had to put in my tibia bone – at an intersection, the violent snout of a green-light too-eager car broke both bones in my left leg.

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