sdodd

For anybody interested, I did some measurements and decided I could fit our 1997 DaVinci Tandem into our 2012 Odyssey by taking out the center middle row seat and building a rack to hold the rear wheel. I'm a person of simplicity so if the bike is in one piece I am more likely to haul/ride it than if I have to take on/off pieces... even if it is just the front wheel. So this rack is designed to swallow the tandem whole - with fenders and wheels all attached. You lift the rear wheel, roll back the tandem, and the clip catches it and holds in place. It is tight and I get a little breathing room with the 26" wheels and 25mm wide tires. But, a larger tandem would still fit. It takes about 20 seconds to load and unload the bike.



Center console area between middle seats


Base of Rack. Holes drilled and tapped on the vertical pieces so screws can hook under the U shaped steel in the van.


Setting up the rear wheel height. Raising the rear wheel means the stokers drop bars are above the middle seats so they can fully recline.



Tabs for the Yakima tray.


Arm to hold the drive side seat stay. Wanted a way to roll in the bike and have it clip in place.



Painted with fold down cup holders attached.


Front wheel holder. When Testing discovered that the front wheel would move around a bit. In this design the angle iron drops between the rear seat and the rear of the car. The front wheel drops between the square tube.



Bike rolled in.



Believe it or not, the rear hatch closes without touching the wheel or shifters.


Loaded up so nothing is touching the bike.

tandem rider

Nice work on the tandem rack. I like your stoker crank arms, are they Da Vinci?

sdodd

Yes, both front and rear cranks are DaVinci. We have been playing with different lengths to get our short legs working right and to better sync our cadence. The triple hole arm is for a kid's stoker set. Allows 170, 150, and 130mm arm lengths without widening the stance by adding adaptors. For us it was great as we had the triple length, a set of 175, 165, and 160 arms that we could move front to back to try different combinations. We have settled on the 165mm front (my normal crank length) and 150mm in the rear for my wife... which is the middle hole on the triple.

You can see current offerings here:
https://www.davincitandems.com/components/

-simon

tandem rider

Thank you. It's great that DaVinci has a nice selection of crank lengths and spindle lengths. I don't know of any other manufacture that has the choices for tandem cranksets.

sdodd

Agreed. Todd does us all a great service by making such an excellent selection of cranks systems!

Bornco

That is a really nice set-up, I really like it. Unfortunately, I don't have the skill or equipment to make something like this.

sdodd

It is never too late to learn! I started welding at 40+ years of age when I took a community college intro to welding class with my 10/12 year old kids. I'm not certified or even very good. Mostly I make brackets and odds and ends for the house or garage. I stay away from anything structural that could get myself or others hurt. In the end, when I work on multi-year projects at work with semi-obtuse end-points, being able to start and finish a project in the garage one weekend is very satisfying. =)

Alcanbrad

Very nice, we haul our tandems in a 2006 Odyssey and I have to take the front wheel off. I hadn't thought of getting more clearance by raising the rear wheel. I'm going to take a look at such an option (when the weather is a little warmer).

sdodd

I raised the back to give the stoker bars clearance from the middle row seats. However, it did provide more clearance as I was able to slide the wheel a little over the front center console. I could have moved back 6” more and still opened the console. But I didn’t need to. Maybe it will work for you?

jays35

Nice and very creative!

obrentharris 

Very nicely done. Great design.
But you sure went to a lot of trouble for a guy who doesn't like to remove a front wheel!
Brent

sdodd

Hah! Good point!
1) the incremental effort of building a stable way of hauling the tandem in the van and building it to accommodate the front wheel being on was minimal.
2) taking off the front wheel is OK, but wheels/forks/disks/etc aren't very structural when they are apart so it is easier to damage
3) taking a day to build a rack can be planned and is enjoyable. Taking an extra 5 minutes to take off/put on/secure the tandem each ride is just an extra hurdle to overcome. And when it is raining out, I don't need more de-motivators. =)

simon

Philly Tandem

That's pretty cool! I've thought of doing something similar for my 2016 Odyssey but am too lazy :-)

Questions:
1. How does it bolt to the seat mounts (I assume) in the second row? Do you have a photo of that?
2. Doesn't the clamp scratch the seatstay? Surprised you don't use a clamp with a coating or padding of some sort.
3. What are the square box-looking things on the uprights of the rack? Cupholders, maybe? If so, bonus points for that!

sdodd

1) the rack sits on top of the center console mounts in the van. There is a horizontal bar on top of the two front mounts and a second bar on top of the two rear mounts. I welded little 1/4" thick steel tabs that stick down into the recess in front and behind the van mounts. I then drilled and tapped for a screw that extends under the van mount. (the van mounts are U shaped round stock that sticks up into the van... more like an 'n' shape) Picts below of the tab and screws. The bars keep the rack resting on the van, the tabs keep the rack from moving front to back and side to side (as they just fit into the van recess) and the screws keep the whole rack from lifting up and out. It isn't ideal as it takes about 5 min to get the screws installed, but I usually leave the rack in most of the time anyway.

2) Yes, the clamp has the potential to scratch the seat stay. I put some electrical tape on the seatstay to protect the bike. It isn't really needed as there are no sharp edges on the clamp - they are all rounded. I had a powdercoated version in there at one point instead of just the metal version but it didn't make much difference.

3) the boxes are steel plates with cupholders added. I used 'fisher universal cup holders'. They have a great mechanism for folding and they size well for different size cups. WAAAAAAY better than most of the generic cup holders. $20 each but worth not worry about which kid will break one when. https://www.ultimatecupholders.com/f...cupholder.html Pictures below as well.


Front view of retention bracket

Side view of retention bracket

Cup Holder closed

Cup holder open