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Bike Rack Ed |
Bikers Site about Bike Mounts, Home made bike racks, hoists, storage and biking.
So, I had a whole ton of pictures on my new phone that I’d been collecting for a while. Saving them up and waiting to post them when my iPhone decides to delete everything off of my phone! Good times. Luckily I managed to save some of them before the data catastrophe, but it’s an annoyance none the less.
What do you get when you try to take a picture of a Chevrolet Cavalier with a Bike Rack. Apparently, the answer is a picture that’s slightly skewed. This I believe 2001 or newer Cavalier has a bike roof rack on top with the Yakima fairing. You can probably safely assume that the owner got Yakima for the rest of the cavalier roof rack setup but I was not close enough to really tell. I guess if you wanted to save money and all the parts fit, you could always mix and match the parts. For a Chevrolet Cavalier bike rack, I think that the roof rack is the way to go, either that or a trunk mount bike rack such as the Saris Bones.
I can’t believe that I’ve never come across Park Tools repair site before. After making my post about bicycle repair tool kits the other day, I think it goes hand in hand that I share two awesome free bicycle repair manual sites with you. Sheldon Browns (http://sheldonbrown.com) which you’ve undoubtedly came across before if you’ve ever searched for how to repair your bike is a great one and another good one is Park Tools (http://www.parktool.com/repair/) Its really easy to navigate and figure out how to fix what ever could be wrong with your bike from an untrue wheel to a broken derailleur. It’s not quite as in depth as Sheldon Browns but it has a great amount of information in it and its easier to navigate. Park tools are obviously going to plug their own tools, where as Sheldon’s would recommend all sorts of bike tools and often alternative bike tools and homemade bicycle tools. Truth is, doesn’t matter where you get your tools from, as long as you have a decent bicycle repair tool set and can find whats wrong with your bike then you can fix it your self and save some money.
The Honda Insight definitely has distinctive looks, which some love but most hate. I’m not a big particular fan of the looks, but am a fan of the technology it uses and the fact that they will be releasing a better looking 2010 Honda Insight. So, how do you mount bikes on this partially electric lump of aerodynamic madness?Well, you can’t go and stick a bike rack on top of it, and reduce the aerodynamics of those wheel arches can you? No, go ahead and buy a hitch and hitch mound bike rack. You should be able to afford it and all, you know, because of all that money you save on gas.
When I posted about my homemade bicycle hoist I was living in a condominium. Pretty shortly, a couple of months after hanging it the home owners association wrote me a rather nasty letter telling me I was not allowed to hang anything off the roof above, or even store bikes or anything else on the deck because it was a fire code violation. Go figure, people had satellite dishes, portable grills, cheap plastic patio furniture and awful sounding wind chimes, but MY bike hoist was just too much. Eventually I took the hoist down which only took a matter of minutes (untied a few knots.) The bikes then lived indoors for a little while after that since the outdoors closet was full of my room mates junk at the time. Don’t get me wrong, I like bikes and I really like riding them, I just don’t necessarily like them all up in my personal space. It was not ideal, but we were moving soon so I figured I’d let it slide. Shortly after all of this occurred, me and my soon-to-be wife moved into a new apartment. I had a new dilemma: “where do I store the bikes now?” but that’s another post in itself.
So here’s to you my trusty home made bike hoist. May you RIP (in parts in my toolbox.)
I recently walked into a well known bike shop just to browse around. I went back to the service desk to take a look at prices just to see what it costs to have repairs done. I found out you can save a lot of money by getting yourself a decent bicycle repair tool kit. Sure you can use your regular tool kit, or your multi-tool but a good bicycle repair tool kit is essential to anyone who is serious about saving money by doing their own repairs. When purchasing a bicycle tool kit take into consideration the cost of the amount of repairs that one single bicycle tool kit will allow you do do. For example, a cheap bicycle tool kit, may cost $20. This may give you a chain tool, and some essentials. This is not going to give you as many tools or the quality that a more luxury bicycle repair tool kit will. What you’ll need in your tool kit depends on your limitations. What do you want your bicycle tool kit to allow you to repair. If you’re like me you’ll want to be able to repair everything but not go overboard with the unessential.
Sure I could have got a tool kit with more options, but the amount of tools I actually needed and use was just right with the toolkit I purchased. The only tool I had to buy was a park tool individual spoke wrench as the multi spoke wrench just didn’t cut it. I’ve put together some tool kits that I would buy and use. Check them out here.
Here is a review of the tool kits I put in the bicycle repair tool kit store and why.
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This toolkit has 37 pieces and is very similar to the park toolkit I got. The only difference is it has a lot more pieces than mine, and is actually cheaper then the retail cost of mine. Had I of known this, I would have purchased this rather than mine. The layout of the case is better. These types of bicycle repair tool kits are great to keep in your garage and move to the car when you need them. You should be able to take this anywhere and fix your bike. |
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There is no doubt about it that Park make great bike repair tools. This is the starter kit. The good think about it is that it’s a toolbox. Meaning you can buy any tools that you may need and stick them in the box. Great for those looking to expand their tools as they need them. I’ve always liked tool boxes and there is no doubt that Park make some of the best tools available. There is a reason some of the best bike shops use Park tools. So why not buy a tool box to match the great quality tools and save your money by buying the set? |
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Want a quality bike toolset without the huge pricetag? This looks like the ticket and the price is low enough to justify it. Another clamshell bike toolkit with the basic tools you’ll need to do repairs on your bikes. Many of the tools included are of the same design as park, just different colors - but don’t tell Park tools that.My kit is very similar to this and there isn’t a problem that I have not fixed yet. You may want to buy some additional spoke wrenches to go with this one though. |
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Ok, if you don’t need all the above tools, but want a quality set get a bike repair kit like this.Just make sure that you put a chaintool in it, in case you have an incident like this: I Broke my Front Derailleur If I had this kit with a chain tool in it, or even my multi-tool it would have saved me a lot of walking. Learn from my mistakes and buy a quality bicycle toolkit! |
Volvo XC70 Bike Rack (Click to Enlarge)
The Volvo XC70 is truly a car that an outdoors person can appreciate. I’ve always like the Volvo tank’s since I saw them rallying around a track. These beats are great, and can traverse a wide range of terrain while still remaining a good family vehicle with decent gas mileage. Although the car is a mid-size wagon, it has a ton of room in the back to put your bikes, but why would you want to do that? Stick em on the roof. Make sure you tie them down though, because if you use this car to its full potential, they will fall off.
Derailer or Derailleur? Either way i have a story about what happened on my way to work the other day.
Firstly I was going to ride my Trek 1000 rather than my Specialized Allez Pro, but I broke the stem off of my inner tube. This didn’t make me very happy, but I figured I’d just get on the Allez. So I did, it was a cold morning and I had some extra gear on. I got about half a mile up the road and was coming to a stop because some one rudely was over too far right, and I couldn’t safely pass to get in the bike lane. Well, as any one on a hill would do as they were coming to a stop, I changed gear. Probably some what in a rush but shortly after I realized that I couldn’t pedal. Great. I figured you know it just got jammed as I was coming to a slowing stop. Look down, and see the reason my pedals wouldn’t move.
See if you can figure out from the picture why:
(Click to Enlarge)
It should be rather obvious what happened, my derailleur is clearly busted. I have to get a new one, but its a good thing I can fix it myself. So for now, I’ve removed it and I’m running around on the smaller chain ring and on my other bike. Not ideal, but it gets the job done.
If you are looking for a free standing bike rack, you have come to the right place. If you are in Austin TX then you can get a free standing bike rack for free off of craigslist. If you’re not in Austin TX, or this exclusive offer has expired I have plans here that will help you make your free standing bike rack, or you can make another type of bike rack from my variety of bike rack plans
Here is the description and a picture:
This bike rack holds two bikes. It’s a little bit rickety but works fine.
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Its your basic free standing bike rack that looks like its been made out of two by fours and painted red. Probably four 2 x 4’s were used, and then some screws. The cost of 2×4’s these days is about $1 - $2 a piece, making this cost about $15 with a box of screws and paint. Not too shabby, but the design can probably be improved to stop it from being “a bit rickety.”
Well, here it is. Another one of my bikes. As you may know I sold my Schwinn Sprint for $100. With that, and some extra money I had laying around I got this Specialized Allez Pro. I’m not sure of the year, but think its a 1993 or 1994. Its pretty bog standard, has Shimano 105 components and down tube friction / indexed shifters. I like riding it, despite its age it rides well and pretty fast. I’ve took the profile “aero bars” off since I don’t need them. The owner I brought it from used it in a couple of triathalons when he was in the Marine Corps said it did pretty good. The only things I need are a saddle (one is old and uncomfy) and I think I might get some new handle bars as these are way too wide and have the strange “turned down” ends. After that minor adjustments and its ready to go. Its about as light as my other Trek, if not a little lighter and rides just as well maybe better its hard to tell with the old saddle. The shifters took a little getting used to, but I find myself changing gear less and concentrating more on riding.
I spotted this trunk mount bike rack on a VW Golf while leaving work. You can barely see it in the picture, although if you enlarge it you might be able to. Anyway, in busy traffic it was easy to catch up to it and snap a good picture. There are lots of straps that you can see on this trunk mount, which can be a bit of a pain to set up, but if you only do minimal bike transporting a trunk mount for your VW Golf should do the trick. Golfs sit low so you can get a good roof rack system setup on them, or if you think you could use a hitch for something else, a hitch mount would work too. I’m still looking for pictures of the black GTI or R32 with a roof rack system loaded with high end bikes. Anyone?
Its been a while since I updated this site. Mostly because I have been buying a house. The news for me is that I no longer need my apartment storage (which I have yet to post about. I’ll update this site once I have the pictures and plans up.) Other news is that I’ve sold my Fixed Gear Schwinn Sprint. I loved the bike, but didn’t ride it enough due to the fact that it was a fixed gear. I probably only put about 150 miles on it at the most after I built it, quite a waste really. Well, along with the house I’m going to be riding my bike to work also known as “Bicycle Commuting.” Most Americans (Except Lance) think that riding your bike to work is a stupid idea, and while I agree with riding your bike to work down the interstate or busy highways for me this will not be a problem. Mostly because I have a bike path all the way to my work, with about 2 miles of actual road, and then another mile straight up hill. It should be a good ride. There are many advantages to biking to work. A short list of them are: not having to deal with traffic, getting a workout in the morning, saving gas money, extending my cars life and Dunkin’ Doughnuts…
Yup thats right, there is a Dunkin’ right on the way to work, which means I can now stop in and stuff my face with one of the foods of champions.
With this I have decided that I needed another bike which I’ll be posting it in another blog post. Until then, here are the pictures of my old bike for remembrance of the good times we’ve had. I’ll miss you old Sprinty *SOBS*. If any one is interested here are larger pictures of my old Schwinn Sprint. Enjoy!
Here I caught a picture on a rainy day of a trunk mount bike rack on a Saturn Ion. I was in rush hour traffic and couldn’t get a close up picture, but if you enlarge it you should be able to see what a trunk mount will look like on the Ion. Its a good thing that they don’t have their bike on this rack today because the down pour and mist from the rear wheels would certainly require the bicycle to undergo a tuneup or at least a re-grease of the chain. It makes me wonder if people ever stop under bridges in the rain if they have their precious bikes loaded.
I know a few people who have Ion’s but none of them have bike racks. One thing they all have in common though is that they love their Ion.
It was taken in Charlotte NC and I’ll give props to any one who can tell me where. I’ll give you a hint: There are a ton of bikes and bike racks in this area, and its not near the airport.
When the HHR first came out I really despised the looks of it. Now its been around for a while its some what grown on me. A friend of mine rented one when it first came out and said that everyone looked at him funny. I don’t think that is the case now since there are uglier cars out there. the Chevy HHR is a decent sized car inside and deserves a bike rack. I’m not sure if you can fit a bike inside of a HHR but you sure can put a hitch, roof or saris bike rack on an HHR. Pictured is a four bike hitch mount rack on a HHR with some custom stickers. I don’t have a bigger image of this one. If your wondering whats up on the left of the picture, that is my hang tag and and Mr. Bones my year round Halloween decoration. Anyhow, this is what a hitch mount looks like on the Chevrolet HHR. You may know I’m a fan of hitch mounts because of their convenience, high build quality and no parts touch your vehicle.
Although not really a homemade bike rack plan I decided to post this in that category also since this could be made into a custom bike rack. What we have here is I believe is an older Chevrolet Silverado, a trailer, some sort of motor cycle and two road bikes. Now, the motorcycle is quite large so imaging how many bikes you’d be able to fit on a trailer like this. I’ve made posts about large family bike transportation before, and this is somewhat like what I had in mind (except without the motor cycle and more than 8 bikes.) The bikes could be mounted by their forks, on roof mounts or just stacked and tied up. The back gate of the trailer would allow easy unloading of the bikes so each family member could walk, or ride their bike off. This picture was taken on the way back from the mountains in NC.
One of the cars I was looking at before I decided what I wanted was a Saturn Vue. Bike rack options for the Saturn Vue are roof mount, hitch mount and some trunk mounts. The bike rack on this Saturn Vue is a roof mount for a single bike. It is so well hidden that I almost didn’t see it. Even with a second mount on the roof there would be plenty of space and it would still look great. Alike all roof mounted bike racks, the Saturn Vue is kind of high in comparison to some cars. Anyhow, you can click the image for a larger picture and decide if the looks and practicality of a roof mount bike rack on the Vue outweigh getting another type of bike rack
I remember taking this picture quite well as it was a challenge to get both cars in the picture. I remember seing the bike rack behind me and trying to figure out how I could take the picture. As I looked in my side mirror I saw the cabriolet pass, and thought it would be awesome if I could get both in the picture.
I was quite excited to see a VW Cabriolet and a VW Golf, both of the VW’s with bike racks. The cabriolet had a hitch mount bike rack that you can’t see very well and the red VW golf obviously has the roof mount. If you are wondering what I’m talking about enlarge the picture and look in my mirror. I wish I was able to get individual pictures of both, but due to the bumper to bumper traffic, the light turning green and both cars being behind me this wasn’t really feasible. Either way, this is a unique one of a kind shot of two bike racks on VW’s.
Trunk Mount Bike Racks are everywhere. Some better quality than others. Some made out of wacky materials, like plastic or composites like some peoples decks are made out of. Some trunk mount bike racks are home made, some cost $500, but what is the best trunk mount bike rack?
People ask what the best type of bike rack is all the time and there is not one solid answer. My answer is, it usually depends on your needs. Trunk mount bike racks are great don’t get me wrong, but they are not suppose to be permanently attached to the car. Sure, its fine to do it if you want to, its not against the law (in all states) but seriously, they don’t look the best they scratch your paint and some models can be easily stolen, I won’t point fingers here Saris.
The picture here was of some trunk mount bike racks that a friend of mine took while shopping. You will notice the saris bones racks on the side. He was wondering how much these should cost, and which one to buy. I told him that he’d be better off finding the model he wanted, by reading about the different types and then buying it online. I even asked him to by it from this site and he agreed. So, if your thinking about buying a trunk mount bike rack, look no further than this blog. After all its pretty much a blog just about bike racks since I’m unfortunately not riding my bike as much these days.
I’ve found a couple of mistakes that I’ve made in this blog, some of which are rather funny. Mostly typo’s and such. The first I noticed was my horrible spelling. Any one who points out a spelling mistake to me gets some BikeRackEd Points. Another one, that I just saw recently is the typo of the link to the right “bicycle cross bark store” I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a cross bark. I’ve made various other mistakes in the past and hope to continue to find them. I’ve got a ton more pictures on my new camera and will have to queue them up for posting. I’ve also got my home made bike rack storage solution that I put in my closet that I promised to post. I wish I had taken pictures of it before it got loaded up with junk and bike parts, but at least I have the bike rack plans or “blue prints” I sarcastically like to call them. As any project of mine, it still needs some work, so its not a 100% complete bike rack yet, but when I’ll post it, even in its not finished condition if you guys promise not to laugh at my woodworking skills.
In this picture we have a picture that I took of a bike rack for a Dodge Neon. Its a little dark, so you may want to click the on the picture for a larger image. Basically when I took this picture I was thinking “cool a bike rack for a neon, I don’t have one of those yet” but soon realized as I got closer that there was something wrong with this. The bike is obviously not correctly mounted, the instruction manual clearly shows how to mount a bike and this is not how you do it. Now I understand that this is a girls bike and its a common problem for full suspension mountain bikes but there is a solution to this problem. Get a cross bar adapter for your bike, if you care anything about your car, bike, pedestrians, other motorists or what people think of you. If you care nothing for any of these then you should probably not be riding a bicycle in the first place, let along driving. So there will be no need for that bike rack. Anyway, this picture of the dodge neon bike rack was actually taken at a university so I can cut a little slack since college students tend to be on the poor side.
The picture to the left is somewhat like I imagined the pop up camper bike rack to be like. The way this differs is, its actually a fully functional roof rack system. Instead of attaching a bike rack to the hitch, or mounting right to the top of the shell or using an internal bike rack, they just installed a normal roof mounted bike rack on it. Genius, now they not only have a cool looking truck but also some where to sleep after a long ride.
The Racor Freestanding Bike Rack truly is an amazing bike rack. As you can see from the image to the left this bike rack holds two bikes and as the name suggests is freestanding. This means that drilling holes in the wall to make sure your bikes don’t fall over is not needed. Just get it out of the box, put it together with the provided instructions and you are ready to rock. You can rest assured knowing that your Racor freestanding bike rack will hold your bikes up for years to come. Not only does it get your bikes off of the ground freeing up space and helping prevent tire rot, it also gives you additional room in your garage that you can use to store other objects and bike related gear. The Racor freestanding bike rack dominates not only in functionality and design but also in price. If you are in the market for a freestanding bike rack look no further.
I thought that this was funny when I first saw it. It happens to be a campus police car with a hitch mounted bike rack. I don’t know what year it is, but I know that it is a Chevrolet Malibu. So, you ask what kind of bike rack is it? Well, its a two bike Thule. Some people may buy Crown Vic’s or Malibu’s under the reasoning that
“The police drive them, they must be good cars!”
Well, that may or may not be true, but what I can tell you is that the Thule hitch mount racks are some of the best out there. I wasn’t exactly sure of the legalities of taking pictures of police cars, so I kept this one low res and took it from a distance. I’ve seen a police car with a bike loaded on it before and do you know what type of bikes they ride? Cannondale. Another quality product, so if you’re going to buy a trunk mount bike rack for a Malibu get a quality Thule one.
I must admit that I have a bit of a thing for black vehicles. I don’t know what it is, but some how they just seem to look better than the exact same vehicle in a different color. This Toyota Sequoia has a roof mounted bike rack and is a nice clean shiny black. It will hold two bikes nicely and the rack its self isn’t too bulky like some of the available heavy duty bike racks out there. I have a feeling that this person does more road biking then mountain biking because of how clean the Sequoia is. The roof line is sort of high, so you might want to park next to a curb or wall, or open the doors and climb in so you can get your bikes down if you don’t have the railing that this one has.
I also have pictures of a hitch mount bike rack for the Sequoia. This is a great alternative if you do not want a roof rack. The rack should fold easily fit in the back of your car for storage if you need it to. I wouldn’t recommend a trunk mounted bike rack for this car since the available hitch and roof should be sufficient. A trunk mount bike rack would fit, but would not be as stable.
If you read my blog you might know I’ve once posted a picture of one of my bikes. I’ve also made a post on how to stop a fixed gear bike which brings me to post another one of my bikes, my fixed gear Schwinn Sprint:
Its not the best bike in the world but it gets the job done. I have to say that riding a single speed or fixed gear bicycle is a workout. Its fine for short trips but I wouldn’t want to ride over 30 miles on a daily basis on one. I’m sure there are people that do, but it is just not for me.