Inside Car Rack

TommyEss

Greetings,

Finally picking up my first car tomorrow, and next weekend I could really do with transporting both a roadie and my MTB down to Essex. I'm getting a Honda Civic, which as has been documented, has a huge boot, but doesn't take rear tailgate bike racks very well at all (plus, I don't want the bikes on the outside if at all possible)

So, I can spend hundreds on the Thule or Minoura racks, with all kind of adaptors and whatnot, or, I can get some wood and some cheap/old hubs and build myself one. I'm aiming for the latter.

So, road front hubs are cheap as chips - as low as £7 for new ones including the QR, so that's about a tenner less than the aftermarket brackets (Saris etc.), add a couple of u bolts and we're good to go. Now, my MTB has a 15mm thru axle. You can get adapters which go into 9mm holders, basically 15mm thru at the top, and fork ends at the bottom - but the adapter is about £30, and I'd still need the 9mm holder/cheap road hub on top of that... So I was looking to buy a 15mm hub - and the cheapest new I can find is about £28.

Not too bad - but, does anyone have a knackered one around I can have/buy? I'm thinking particularly flange failure or similar - unrideable, but could still work for my purposes.

Failing that, has anyone got any better ideas for a rack to hold my bikes upright inside a car with the forks?!

Cheers

Tom

pesky_jones

Is this home made rack going to be a permenant feature?

TommyEss

No - intention is it will be removeable - something like this...



With possibly support struts like this...



Thinking out loud - since the 15mm thru leaves you with the axle in place, could I just fashion something to hold the axle once the wheel's removed? U bolt with some foam padding perhaps? There'll be no weight on the axle since it'll be resting on the fork ends (again could pad?)

pesky_jones

Yeah securing the axle is key. How are you going to make sure the bike stays stable at the top, there will be a lot of force on the drop outs

EDIT: can't see the second picture which may explain how you'll secure the top end of the bike

cooldad

Or you can just lay the bikes down. I carry an old duvet to pad things out.

TommyEss

Second pic only shows extra legs on the base to give stability of the base wood front to back - looks like a wide H shape.

To be honest, I hadn't really considered supporting the top of the bikes - I know on roof mounts they sometimes clamp to the downtube, but not always. Inside the car there'll be no cross winds at least, and to be honest, with no rider on board, how much force is there really going to be? Must be considerably less than when I'm riding and steering hard, right?!

If I go the hub route like the first picture, then the hub is secured to a long wide board, so side to side movement will be negligible, relative to the board (it will move with the car only), shouldn't really move much else. Much wider platform than would be offered by a Thule roof rack mount, for example. If you look closely, he's got a u bolt right up on the inside edge of both flanges, so the hub can't move side to side. I think that would work pretty well.

Cooldad - could do as an interim step, but I'm trying to get something together whereby I could take bikes plus bags - weekend and work trips down to London with work gear for the week, two bikes, etc - rather have things nicely in place than bouncing around.

TommyEss

Oh - and thanks for the design input!! Always good to see a problem from another viewpoint!!

pesky_jones

TommyEss wrote:

To be honest, I hadn't really considered supporting the top of the bikes - I know on roof mounts they sometimes clamp to the downtube, but not always. Inside the car there'll be no cross winds at least, and to be honest, with no rider on board, how much force is there really going to be? Must be considerably less than when I'm riding and steering hard, right?!

I suppose, but when your riding it, if you lean, the axle leans with the bike. Seeing as the axle is secured, the forces might act differently. I suppose if the axle is secured well enough, and everything acts as one (solid) then it should be ok.

TommyEss

Fair point - could alternatively use slightly wider u bolts and pad them with foam/pipe lagging - that way the axle would lean with the bike a little? But then that rather flies in the face of "make solid to act as one"!

pesky_jones

TommyEss wrote:

But then that rather flies in the face of "make solid to act as one"!

Yup It's got to be one extreme or the another, there's no middle ground

James T

No need to secure the top, bikes are held perfectly securely inside the car by their forks. For more security you can strap the back wheels down if you want.

Instead of messing about with hubs, you could get some of these http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/saris-replacement-track-system-trap/rp-prod39590 and bolt them to a piece of wood.

I have a the triple track in my S-Max, being able to adjust the angle/postion of the clamps enable multiple bikes to fit in. I use an adaptor for bolt thru axles, again probably cheaper just to buy one.

In short, easiest most cost effective way would probably be to buy the clamps and adaptors but attach them to a wooden plank.

Hope this helps

JT

snowrider

Or just cut a block of wood to the width of the dropouts and drill a 15mm hole through it?

TommyEss

I did think of that to be honest, but on discussion with my dad, finding a drill bit of that size may well cost more than the hub!!

Phil_D

cooldad wrote:

Or you can just lay the bikes down. I carry an old duvet to pad things out.

This was my first thought, and by the looks of all the pissing about that is about to take place, I still think it's the best solution. Not my bikes though, which are probably nackered enough already.

TommyEss

Yeah, I don't really want a £5k bike bouncing round in the back, especially if there's anything else in there. Thanks for the thoughts/comments - I shall update once I've created the masterpiece/skulk back and ask for places to get old duvets...

cooldad

To be fair I had an old duvet lying around.

The Rookie

TommyEss wrote:

I did think of that to be honest, but on discussion with my dad, finding a drill bit of that size may well cost more than the hub!!

Dremel it out, doesn't have to be 100% precise, just snug round the maxle.

meth_tical

Forstener bits, come in a range of sizes including 15mm. Can be picked up as cheap as £4 and then can always go in the toolbox for future use.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=forst ... 60&bih=577

JohnBurt

Or rather than a piece of wood you could try a bit of overflow pipe cut to 100mm (hub spacing) and secure it to your plank with some pipe clips would look good too.

rockmonkeysc

cooldad wrote:

Or you can just lay the bikes down. I carry an old duvet to pad things out.

That works for me. Even stacked three high and surrounded with tools, riding kit and wheels nothong ever gets damaged.

YeehaaMcgee

RockmonkeySC wrote:

cooldad wrote:

Or you can just lay the bikes down. I carry an old duvet to pad things out.

That works for me. Even stacked three high and surrounded with tools, riding kit and wheels nothong ever gets damaged.

^^Very much this. My bike takes a hell of a lot more abuse whilst it's being ridden than it does in the back of a car or van.

TommyEss

* I feel at this point I must qualify that whilst one of my bikes is a hurly-burly trail bike, all the others are *mutters* road bikes - and if I need to take a road bike and a MTB down the motorway, ain't no bouncing going on on my watch!!

YeehaaMcgee

I'm in the opposite situation, I've got two (and a bit) mountain bikes, and a road bike. I'm just not overly precious about it. It still takes more of a beating being ridden than in the car.

cooldad

So you chuck duvet/blanket/well padded wife over the MTB and stick the road bike on top. Unless you have square wheels or drive rallies, it's not really bumpy.
I can even drive back from the supermarket without breaking eggs normally.

tigersnapper

If it is of any help, I've got a Civic and if I am just taking my bike out it gets laid down in the back - don't even need to take wheels off. It's a £1.5k road bike and has not been damaged in the 3 months I've been doing this. If I am taking mine and the Mrs' bikes they go on the roof as I haven't got the guts to stack them!

Jay76

I have a Civic (2002 EP1) It takes rear racks very well. i bought a Halfords one for 25 quid and no complaints.
When Im feeling lazy we take off the front wheels and lay the bikes on top of each other - with a blanket in between them and the rear seats down (obviously)
both hefty freeride bikes too.

TommyEss

Well, thanks for all the comments - here it is in all it's glory.







As you can see - main aim was to save some boot space for luggage - since I'll be heading down to my girlfriend's for a long weekend, and she'll be mad if I bring bikes and no smart clothes for the boat party...! :P

Bungy cords hold the bikes back in case of heavy braking - the base bar is held from side to side movement by the L-brackets. A bit over engineered since I wanted to option to take off the MTB hub and put on a second road hub, so I've got "cassettes" on top of a base bar.

Improvements if I were to do it again? Either a wider base plate (front to back width) - I think I'm going to add some "feet" under the two ends of the base bar to help here.

Anyway, not bad for an engineer who normally sits behind a desk!

YeehaaMcgee

That looks like a tall car, compared to mine. I haven't been able to get my bike upright in any of my last three cars due to the fork length!

TommyEss

Yeah, it is surprisingly tall on the inside but looks pretty normal from the outside (it's definitely hatchback not mini-MPV) - I can almost, almost, get the road bike in without taking the saddle out.

*Edit* - The fold flat seats really help too.

YeehaaMcgee

My old 306 had seats that folded that flat. The lower seat assembly pivoted forwards, creating a kind of muni bulkhead, and allowing the seat back to fold fully down.
Still couldn't fit my forks in!

bellys

Why did you not just lift the boot floor. Under the hatch there is a big hole. take front wheel off and sit the fork in there. Honda do a mount that fits in there for the forks to clamp to..