Self made carrier rack

[ichitan]

Following are some pictures of my self made carrier rack. I used three inexpensive carrier racks, welded together. The carrier rack is longer and wider than most carrier racks. It is useful for carrying a range of things a person may want to carry on a bicycle. It could easily have a crate or something else attached to it for carrying smaller items.

Notice the bracing. The front bracing minimizes flexing backwards or forwards. The side bracing minimizes flexing from side to side. It is supported at twelve points at the top, and four on the frame.

It weighs 2 kg.

On this bike it can carry 30 kg. The limiting factor is the tire. It has a mountain bike tire on a narrow rim. If too much weight is carried, the tire can roll from side to side, causing the bike to wobble. With a wider rim, it could carry much more.

Notice the repurposed drink bottles used to make the mudguard.

   

   

[ichitan]

For those interested, it is nearly 300mm wide at the back, and nearly 600mm long.

In the past, i have had a standard aluminum carrier rack. I carried two back packs on it, one on top of the other. They would start lean one way or the other. If I did not stop and straighten them, they would fall off. With my self made carrier rack, you can carry something similar, and it will not start to lean, so it is easy to secure.

If you put 50kg on this carrier rack, it would not break. But it would become difficult to ride a bike with 50kg on the carrier rack.

The advantage with steel is, if it gets bent, you can straighten it. If it breaks, you can weld it.

[enkei]

Looks great. Has a nice art-deco style to it, too.

[Lss555]

Damn if you welded that together, that’s way good, you could start a business selling custom bike racks.

[ichitan]

(04-22-2023, 08:55 PM)Lss555 Wrote:  Damn if you welded that together, that’s way good, you could start a business selling custom bike racks.

I am not planning to at this point in time, but it is not a silly idea.

You would need to come up with really good designs. Then different bikes would have different attachment points, which you need to allow for. Aluminum would be lighter than steel, but more difficult to repair if damaged. Then you could see which designs had the most demand, and focus on them.

[GirishH]

Hello ichitan, truly great work. Did you follow a tutorial/plan or this was all your imagination? Regardless, this is very creative work. I agree with Lsss555. You should start selling these..:-)

[ichitan]

(04-25-2023, 09:52 AM)GirishH Wrote:  Hello ichitan, truly great work. Did you follow a tutorial/plan or this was all your imagination? Regardless, this is very creative work. I agree with Lsss555. You should start selling these..:-)

It was just a case of joining 3 inexpensive carrier racks together, then adding the bracing, so it does not flex.

It is good in that it makes it easy to carry large things, and it can take as much weight as you can carry.

This exact design would not be ideal to sell. But you could make a few improvements on it, and have an even better design.

If you made something like this to sell, you could have more than one model, and see which people want the most.

The best selling carrier racks would be aluminum, because of the light weight, or some other light weight design.

[Talha]

(04-17-2023, 11:12 AM)ichitan Wrote:  Following are some pictures of my self made carrier rack. I used three inexpensive carrier racks, welded together. The carrier rack is longer and wider than most carrier racks. It is useful for carrying a range of things a person may want to carry on a bicycle. It could easily have a crate or something else attached to it for carrying smaller items.

Notice the bracing. The front bracing minimizes flexing backwards or forwards. The side bracing minimizes flexing from side to side. It is supported at twelve points at the top, and four on the frame.

It weighs 2 kg.

On this bike it can carry 30 kg. The limiting factor is the tire. It has a mountain bike tire on a narrow rim. If too much weight is carried, the tire can roll from side to side, causing the bike to wobble. With a wider rim, it could carry much more.

Notice the repurposed drink bottles used to make the mudguard.

Is that piece of wood there just for the tail light?
I'll try to model this in 3D and upload the renders, with cleaner welds and upgrades

[Sybian]

(04-18-2023, 10:21 PM)ichitan Wrote:  The advantage with steel is, if it gets bent, you can straighten it. If it breaks, you can weld it.

You can bend and weld aluminum also. You can choose an aluminum alloy wire that is suitable for that purpose. I know a touring cyclist who just cut an aluminum rack (blackburn brand?) in half lengthwise and just added extension bars to widen it (x2). He used a cross-bracing design to avoid rack wobble with low mounting at QR/hub axle (no eyelets needed on frame) or dropout eyelets, and high mounting on seat stays. It weighed about 1Kg/2.25lbs and could support about 35Kg/80lbs total. It was pannier compatible allowing weight to be kept low, thus providing better handling than having everything on the top of the rack which helped reduce rack flex/wobble; ligthweight supplies were on top and heavy supplies were in the side bags.

You do have a good design, but the extra weight (2Kg/4.5lbs) is somewhat higher than most touring cyclists want to add for an accessory over the weight of food/water/gear. Probably quite suitable for shorter commuting and 1 day touring, or a trade/cargo bike use.

[ichitan]

(04-26-2023, 01:40 AM)Talha Wrote:  Is that piece of wood there just for the tail light?

Notice it's secured with a rubber strap, so if you put something large on top, it just moves down, and the light does not get broken. Like the drink bottle mudguards, things don't have to be expensive.