Adding Wheels To A Regular Cardboard Bike Box?
 

Hello,

It looks like I will be doing some traveling and using a recycled cardboard bike box to get under the airlines 50 pound weight restrictions. I will be going through airports and possibly train stations and was thinking that it would be nice to come up with some type of detachable wheels that I could put on to at least one end of the box to avoid having to drag it across the parking lot / tarmac / pavement, etc. The wheelies can either be stored in the box with the bike or other luggage.

Have any of you ever done this or have any ideas that might work? Extra credit for pictures!

Thanks,
Steve

I tried to attache an URL but I havent posted enough times yet. If you search Bike Box Roller you'll get a few ideas.
I am heading to the US from Tasmania and I have made something similar not as well engineered as this but hopefully will do the job. Mine only has to be a one off for about a km of walking. Once I get to my motel it will probably go in the bin.

I thought the wheels went on the inside. :) (OK, had to say that)

There are small light folding carts designed for travel that could be attached to the box with tape or bungees. A small 3-wheel caster would be simpler, but might be hard to attach to the box.

Here is the link but they are apparently out of business as well as the Crateworks.com referenced in the comments.
https://singletrackworld.com/2019/05...ase-on-wheels/

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/...ng-a-bike-box/

On our summer flight to Spain, I asked at TSA (Vail, CO) if such a wheel system would be allowed. They said it depended on each airline. You could do something removable at the counter, just to be safe.

I was sad to see Crateworks go away. I still have one of its plastic boxes from the early 2000s. It has served me well. At least 11 round trip flights or shipments, but it’s showing its age.

Thank you for that link, looks like an interesting DIY home project.

Do you ever ever see a worn out skate board in the trash?

If you are handy with tools, you could make a DIY type of gizmo like the link (above) to that other one using a pair of skate board wheels or roller blade wheels.

At stores like Good Will or similar charity stores you often see semi-worn luggage with wheels for cheap. The wheels from one of those attached to a board might work?

I have no clue if this would handle a 40 pound plus bike box. With the wheels rotating instead of fixed in a straight line, on sloping surfaces it could roll away from you and fall over. I thought of this because where I used to work they had some of these for computers but nobody used them and they were eventually discarded. I think it would work better if there was a way to make two of the wheels stay in a straight line, or maybe all four. If you can't make the wheels stay in a straight line, I think this would not work because the bike box would be too tall to handle.
http://www.amazon.com/VIVO-Computer-.../dp/B074P76TBW

My plan would be to make it removable so the wheels could be stowed in the bike box or in other luggage

The only drawback would be keeping the cardboard from getting wet and turning into mush.

I have a friend who canceled his trip because they were driving to the airport with his boxed bike on top of the car. It rained so heavily during the drive that the box was starting to melt.

for his next trip, he painted shellac on the box. It also did not rain!

Here is yet another interesting reusable bike box:
https://squirtcycling.us/collections...ducts/bike-box

... which also appears to be unavailable in the U.S. Appears to be private labeled from:
https://www.bikeboxcompany.com/shop

easy-peasy!

buy a used skateboard at goodwill or ebay for around $10, duct tape to bottom of carton. give it away after you check in your luggage.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/36304388617...item54871a145b

Don't use luggage wheels, they are cheap and fall apart. Cheap unsealed bearings, the urethane separates from the plastic core, they fall apart. I just repaired a quality luggage carryon roller, replaced the factory wheels with inline skate wheels salvaged from skates being thrown out, even cheap inline skate bearings are plenty good, and these wheels had high-grade bearings. Look for larger diameter skate wheels.

I would fabricate a "seat" from plywood that one lower end of the box would sit in. The sides would each have a hole near the bottom, into which you would poke a screwdriver, then push a threaded axle through from one side to the other, put on a spacer washer, wheels, and two nuts to be locked against each other on each side. The axle holds the seat in place on the cardboard, the holes in the cardboard won't take much vertical load but they'll only yield until the seat takes the load from the bottom. Put a handle on the other end of the box, lift and roll.

I was about to joke that a hoverboard (from Back to the Future part III) would work well, but that's actually now a term for a small foot platform with two wheels, self-balancing motorized, usually about $100; One of those that no longer works electrically might fit well under the bike box.

get thee to a nunnery and ask if they kept one of the mattress bags that the nun bed mattresses came in.
or go to a mattress store
Ive generally been lucky in that my bike boxes have fit in cars, and or just been lucky for no rain the few times bike boxes have been out in the open--but when I think about the couple of times theyve been exposed to the elements, it was after I landed and could have found another bike box for the return.

good point to bring up though, to either have a bag available or simply buy plastic from a hardware store or something and tape it up, for getting to the airport

HAH! I like what you did there.

I hadn't cottoned onto this comment before.
I agree, having a wheel system on your bike box going on airport conveyor belts, around unseen corners and miles of behind the scenes airport baggage conveyor belts, through doors etc, around other baggage, baggage carts used by the baggage handlers--- in my opinion is just asking for them to get ripped off and wrecking your bike box.
An accident waiting to happen.

Well, here is bike box wheels 2.0! I borrowed from the original Aussie design and made some, what I consider significant, improvements as follows:

1. The fold out "outriggers" have been moved to the inside of the bottom angle for better contact with the box.
2. The attachment points for the straps on the wheel assembly has been moved to the end of the "outrigger" braces for more leverage in holding the wheel assembly to the box with the tension that can be exerted by the straps.
3. Slide design was changed to smaller angle to eliminate the need to find telescoping square/3/4 tubes. It was hard enough to find the other aluminum stock.

Materials:
Qty 2 - 2" x 2" x 1/8" x 4"- Large angle - Metal Supermarkets
1" x 1/2" x.090" - Rectangular tube - Axle carrier. - Metal Supermarkets - Couldn't find .062" wall so had to file the nuts down to fit!
Qty 1 - 1" x 1" x 1/16" x 7" - Slide angle - Lowes or HD
Qty 4 - 1" x 1/8" x 3-1/2" - Folding outriggers - Lowes or HD
#8 flat-head screws with nylock nuts and washers/lock washers as appropriate
Qty 2 - 60" main diagonal strap - Gear-Aid 60" straps from REI
1-1/4" split rings - Top corner harness - hardware store
Qty 2 - 26" x 1" nylon strap - top corner harness
Qty 2 - Used skateboard wheels
Qty 4 - 22mm x 8mm x 7mm skateboard wheel bearings - Find ones that are rubber sealed on both sides
Qty 2 - Skateboard wheel bearing spacers.
Qty 2 - 5/16" wingnuts
Qty 2 - 5/16" x 2" - Threaded rod - axles
Qty 4 - 5/16" Nuts - Axle assembly & holder.

Photos:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...7a51f7bba8.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...24ce3dad99.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6bd87ac865.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...cf9120967e.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...2350e048bc.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...b53beae379.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bc6bff282a.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...385dbff6a5.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bba8632c03.jpg

Brilliantly designed!

Are the wheel axles just threaded directly into the aluminum extrusion, or is there a nut inside?

If you have any problems with anything yielding, inline skate wheels, being much thinner, will bring the wheel centerline in a great deal, to reduce axle bending moment, and they also have superb bearings. There is also always the possibility of using a long single thru-axle for both wheels, so the axle support extrusion is only loaded in vertical shear, but that adds weight and bulk when being transported.

Looks very well thought out and functional.

I made a couple of small wooden things similar to that to put under the back end of my kayak or canoe, so I can lift up the front and roll it on pavement or grass. The smallest one is only used on pavement, I used in-line skate wheels. To avoid having wheel alignment problems I used a single axle shaft of aluminum rod, and small clip pins to hold the wheels on. But the single axle would not allow you to remove the wheels to reduce volume like your design. In my case, making it more compact was unimportant.

Very good job.

I didn't trust threads into aluminum for multiple assembly/disassembly so there is a steel nut that is epoxied inside the aluminum box.

I would hope that I don't have to worry about anything bending. The bike boxes can only weigh 50 lbs max to avoid airlines exhorbitant overweight fees. So the heavy end of the box might be 35 pounds spread over two wheels is unlikely to bend anything. I'll keep the roller blade wheels in mind if these are found lacking. I must of hit about 10 thrift stores and only found zero roller blades and only one skateboard with bad wheel bearings.

That would also mess with thee adjustability. This is designed for bike box width of 8"-12".

Good man. I was hoping as such, but couldn't see inside the box section. If the nut comes loose, I'd recomment a rivet nut or rivnut, it works like a hollow wall anchor but for greater loads. Wiki page shows them, but not crimped in place. I've used for applications where the original threading into thin aluminum stripped. Permanent fix.

I got a chance to try this out in my recent trip to Mallorca. It worked great! The only real issue is to keep the cab drivers from using the straps to pick up the whole box!

BTW, the fold out "outriggers" need to be as long as possible to keep the wheels on the box. This appears to be a fatal flaw in the original design which may be why it was abandoned.

Th wheels were made to be adaptable to 8-12" wide bike boxes. The box I used which only required removing the front wheel and the stem was a standard 10" wide box that REI uses to ship bikes. I found it quite snug width wise as the front tire (wrapped in cardboard) would only fit amidships in the box.

BTW, I have attached some photos of the packed bike in the box to show the lack of side clearance in a 10" wide box. I don't know if any of you have any better suggestions on how to pack but this is the best that I could come up with. The other issue that needs work is that the box is about 4-5" too long so the bike "package" will shift within the box which damages and wears on the inside of the box which is bad if you intend to reuse the box.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f46ebf2063.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...34df9eba5d.jpg

This may give you a few ideas for next time.

I bought my road bike on Amazon about six years ago. Bike is a Raleigh Grand Prix, that specific Grand Prix has a Ritchey Break Away frame which is why I bought it. I took a few photos of it immediately after I pulled it out of the box, but before I did anything else just to have a record of how the factory packed the bike in the box.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...91f438d751.jpg

Photo below, saddle on seatpost is not attached to bike, it was loose in the box.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...44138f9742.jpg

Next photo is cropped from one of the above photos. I wanted a closeup of how the rear derailleur was setup for shipping, there was an extra long plastic spacer on the skewer to hold the derailleur away from the side of the box. And chain on biggest sprocket, probably to have the derailleur as inward as possible. I would have been inclined to remove the rear derailleur, but this bike has a steel frame, hanger is not a sacrificial one that can break.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...efaf836a3b.jpg

No skewer on the front wheel, small parts like that were in a separate small box.

Side note: As I was finishing my bike tour in Iceland eight years ago, at the campground in Reykjavik there were two Italians asking around if anyone knew where you could buy a front skewer for a bike, both of their front skewers were bent from the airline shipping their bikes the way they were packed. I did not know where any bike shops were, or if they would be open on a Sunday.

The aluminum canoe in the photos was not included with the bike. I bought that before Amazon existed.

It looks like I made the correct choice with the front wheel in the middle on the non-drive side. The bars complicate how far forward you can move the wheel. I still need to do something to keep the bike from sliding in the box.

I zip tie my front wheel in middle ish of frame also, improvise with bars.
As for bike moving around in box, from trial and error, I know now what dimensions are best.
Too big isn't good for bike moving, and the right size box (smallest) is easier on airport trollies etc getting t through doors