Bike hacks, Ikea-based and otherwise

tomasrojo

I meant to make a thread like this before, and I've just finished an Ikea hack, so might as well do it now.

I did some Ikea hacks before, which are on this cargo bike thread:

Light bracket mounting point on the cargo box (Stugvik):

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100140509&postcount=110
(I've changed that one since: the light bracket is now secured around a hollow plastic cylindrical lid, with a hole drilled in the bottom, secured by the nut you can see in the centre of the circular pad on the box)

Lock holster (Variera):

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100282402&postcount=116
(The final version secured some of the weaker points in the Variera with cable ties passing through drilled holes, and an elastic rope to stop the Kryptonite lock from shifting forward in transit)

Variation of the above for spontaneous shopping:

tomasrojo

So my new hack is a Brompton basket, based on another Variera, which fits onto the quick-mount standard front block:

tomasrojo

More to follow in a minute. Can you bear the suspense? Yes.

tomasrojo

So it involved cutting out and sanding an appropriate wedge shape into a piece of wood:


Then cutting a hole into for the little springy catch to go into, so the basket doesn't jump off:


Then glued some strips of fibre board around the shape of the retention block:


Then glued another piece of stronger wood onto the back of that:

tomasrojo

I "painted" the exposed margins of the fibre board with epoxy resin to make it stronger and more waterproof.

Then secured that lot with screws and two bolts:



And that fits on pretty well and securely:

And stands on its own on the ground perfectly:


Have to stain the two wooden boards on the outside of the "sandwich" to weatherproof them, but that's pretty much it. It just survived a trip to the bottle bank anyway, so looking good.

amcalester

Have you any that make hills easier?

tomasrojo

Do Ikea do pedelec motors?

f1000

You should send these to GCN for the Hack/Bodge section of the Tuesday show

tomasrojo

I wasn't aware of that. Just looked it up.

Must check it out. I like little things like this.

tomasrojo

Just an update on the Ikea-hack Brompton basket (I'm sure you've thought about little else since last week).


The plastic bit of the basket was flexing a bit too much, so I braced it a bit more, using screws and cable ties cinched through holes, with the latter also being used to reinforce bits that are hinges or click-in points for fasteners, which might come loose under load.






Anyway, seems to work fine still. I'll post here if it falls apart or something.

tomasrojo

There was a Brompton locked up outside the supermarket tonight, and when I unlocked my own Brompton and made to cycle off, the owner of the other Brompton stopped me to ask where I got the handy basket. His eyes started to glaze over a bit when I explained though.

tomasrojo

Well, after quite a few years using my Ikea-hack Brompton basket, I realized just last week that I could carry pizza horizontally with it, combined with my long-shackle Kryptonite Evolution Series 4.