jj1091

Thanks. I guess the forum's email notifification system must be behind, because I hadn't seen but one reply to my post and thought maybe I'd offended the social graces of the elite with my ugly home-made racks, but, alas, there's 25 messages on this one! It was a fun endeavor in necessity being the mother of invention, only took 3 hours start to finish, cost=$0. My kind of a good day.

jj1091

Sure, there's all kinds of risk with the wooden racks, but since I'm embarking on a 3-day tourer this weekend along a route that has about 18 miles of narrow 2-lane and 5 miles of dirt/gravel road, on a 75-mile one-way trip, the risk seems minor. My gear can all stow in a backpack which will be along with me, so if the racks disintegrate, I can use them at my camp-fire as kindling.

jj1091

I did the same with a roof-rack I put on my '80 Buick regal. I was in the home remodeling/handyman business and couldn't afford a pickup truck at the time. They sell those strap clips that hook into the roof's rain-channel, so I cut slots in the wood (I made my rails out of hardwood, full 2" x 2") and ran the strapping though the slots. It was heavy-duty enough that my Buick could carry 10 sheets of 1/2" sheetrock on the top without any movement of the load. I ain't skeered...

jj1091

Hey, nice rack! (reminding myself to not say this out loud to women)

jj1091

Uhhhh, that COULD be a compliment. Course, the bike could look terrible and consistency wouldn't be a good end.

jj1091

Funny you should say that. Last week I found a DeWalt circular saw hard-case, about the size of a small Harley Tourpack that I was thinking would work. It could go well with the "craftsman series" Peugeot. Fenders? Hmmmm, I've got some old wood-slat Venetian blinds out there, but I'm unsure if the Italians get along well with the French.

jj1091

Good points. I looked at the front rack, which is a bit wobbly already with the single center-point rear mount, and I could add a 2nd down-strut since I have a 2nd fork eyelet. That would improve the strength greatly. The rear, with its built-in dual-side mounts on the seat-stays, wouldn't benefit any without a second rear eyelet. Besides, I weigh 153 lbs and I've sat on the rear rack with my feet off the ground and wiggled all I could, and the rack stays tight to the frame, it'll hold up fine.


Yeah, I'd make the fenders out of wood if I could chrome them.

jj1091

Oh, I will, after lauding their merits out here in public-land. Maybe the E.R. nurse can take pics of the pieces of wood sticking out of my leg. Thanks for the kudos.

jj1091

I'd spent a good amount of time considering the shear factor of the downforce at the eyelet locations, and since the Pug has very large eyelet holes, I decided to use a rather stout bolt there with large washers and a good amount of torque, so I think they'll hold up well at the base anchor-points. At the top of the struts, there's just a single stainless screw holding the pieces together, and since it was "supposed to be" a dry-fit, and I got a bit lazy, I didn't disassemble the racks, again, and glue them up. My experiences in woodworking have taught me that all that fancy joinery, like drilling out the side-rails to accept the dowel all the way through the pieces, or dadoing the overlaps, was a toss up, since the wood gets weakened by that amount of wood removed from the drilling or dadoing. But, all that joinery can be eliminated with a proper gluing together of the pieces, which I'll be doing when I get unlazy tomorrow.

jj1091

Yeah, the front will only be holding a small lunch-sized cooler zipup bag which holds my bike tools and spare parts. Maybe 5 lbs, tops. As for the rear, I weigh 153, and even without the pieces having been glued together, yet (it was a dry-fit for the pics), the rear rack held me sitting on it and wiggling around with my feet off the ground. My camping load is around 30 lbs, so it should be good.

jj1091

Yes. It's why the angles of the stays were mirrored, front and back. I'd compared how many older racks having single stays had the same angle. I just copied the geometry. I'm more concerned, actually, that the front tire doesn't match the rear tire, and the symmetry isn't yet complete.

jj1091

Thanks. Yeah, I'm alright with them for my local needs, even my weekend out-of-town tour, but they're not what I want for the long-term, just a bit too much bulk trying to go along with the bike's French style for my taste, and I'd never have them on a cross-country tour, but they'll hold up to a lot of abuse. I've had several sets of steel and aluminum racks in the same geometry, and they had way too much side-play and swaying in the turns. The rear racks are tight as a drum, no sway at all from the loads I've put on them so far, and then again, when they're loaded, the weight will be down lower with the panniers, instead of like now with the weight sitting on top of the racks.

jj1091

Cool. So, how does that red rear brake work, anyway? I don't see a cable going to it....

jj1091

Now, you've made an excellent point there. The care of the object related to it's value. You drive more carefully with the kids, or the beer on-board. I'm actually safer with my rickety racks.

jwarner

Sounds like you have it figured. Just be careful huh.

AAZ

Terrific thread!

jj1091

That's the kind of re-purposing ingenuity I love to see. I just sold a bike with one of those racks, and it always was annoying clamping something onto paint I had to touch up later. Great idea.

long john

These are all great better than most of what I see on BikeHacks

Sixty Fiver

Yep.

-holiday76

just lean back er n kick er down wif yer toe.

elcraft

Regarding the Pletscher rack stability issue, there was an aftermarket "stabilizer" that braced the OEM clamp to the brake's mounting bolt. These were either a "T" shaped or triangular flat plate with holes drilled in each corner. Using one of these made a dramatic difference in the rack's stifness.
The OP's rack could be improved with small triangular struts parallel to the wheels' hub axles bracing the longer legs. Some of the ready made panniers have mounting hardware that won't play nicely with this rack, though.
Praise is due to making something useful out of what would otherwise be discarded into a landfill!

aixaix 

What that piece did was keep the rack from sliding down the seat stays. I don't think it made the rack mount any stiffer, but it kept the rack in place on the frame which made it less likely the seat stay clamp would loosen up.

jj1091

Very nice heavy-duty rack there. That one would be an ideal size to just throw a backpack on and bungee her down.

jj1091

Good point. A stiffener is what I have inside my touring bags. I use flat pieces of 1/4" plywood inside the bag up against the wheel side to stiffen the bag, make two holes through the plywood and the bag to allow me to run a strap around the seat-stay, the strap being a heavy-duty zip-tie. Where the bags throw-over the rack, I use tight-strung bungee cords to hold them to the rack. The whole thing becomes locked-down on three surfaces. I don't use regular panniers, I have a matching vinyl set of larger business-type travel bags with handles and shoulder straps that work well.

noglider 

Oh snap. That wasn't a compliment.