Thursday, June 4, 2009

Modular Storage








Even though this bike seems to have ample space to carry everything, like a good backpack it needs lots of pockets to stash stuff.

You can see the previously installed black basket on the far under side of the rack. I use this to carry locks, rain gear and most recently a can of white and a can of black spray paint, my one biker campaign against taggers. I had tried to store my tools, tubes and patch kit in here as well. These were all so small that they’d either get thrown out the top on bumps or settle so far to the bottom that they became impossible to find.

The other day while at Home Depot I spied a tubular, red, round container laying on the floor beneath a welder display. I was about to walk past it and I was struck with the idea of mounting it below that cargo deck and stuffing it with tools, tubes, patch kit, bungies, ratchet straps and tie-wraps. Of course tie-wraps were deployed to hold this in place…strong, cheap and they don’t rust.
Of course I had to customize my new storage with stickers from my favorite local places here in Seattle.

This part was less than $10US and fills a real need.

5 comments:

evan said...

Hi Cargo bike, I've been pondering hard on investing in the Bilenky cargo bike frameset. By the way, DWI is out of town, not making frames right now. I've been trying different cargo bikes. I've ridden an extracycle, and a home-built bakfiet. I did not like the way extracycle rode, loaded, parked, etc. I was impressed with the bakfiet's handling, though couldn't imagine easily maneuvering the lowrider on rough short-cuts or aound curbs, or through snow obstacles. ANT bikes makes a normal length bike with a 20" front wheel and a large cargo basket on top(I can probably fit it on the bus's front rack too). To justify the space/time and parts expenditure, I'll need to ride my cargo bike pretty much everywhere I go. I ride approximately 100+ transportion miles per week, on a steel bike with a nexus8 hub and 35mm tires. I live on the high plains of Colorado and frequently get caught in jet stream-ish winds while riding. It is tough to invest in a $1600+ frameset for which I cannot test ride anything similar first. I saw your youtube video, and you make it look easy to pedal the cargo bike. Do you think the cargo bike might be too piggy to suit my total volume of pedal travel?

Anonymous said...

Cheap storage modular cubes

You might try going to a dairy products distributing company. They may have inexpensive surplus plastic crates which are good for storage. They are made in different colors and stack well too.
by Miami limousine

Lane Kagay said...

Hey great! I had the same idea. Blueprint tubes would do it.

Bisiani said...

Very cool

Recycle American Van's

Andy Squirrel said...

Where did you get the red tube in Seattle? What is brand/name/part-number/typical use?