APPLEBLOCK

Porteur bag made from pizza delivery bag

2011-10-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

I found that in order to take advantage of the usefulness of the excellent custom porteur rack that Alistair Spence built for my Nishiki, I needed some kind of porteur bag. After pondering making or commissioning a high-class canvas porteur bag, I decided that it would make sense to adapt a pizza bag.

The pizza bag has a few distinct advantages over a classy bag - it is cheap ($25.50 at Bag Solutions, https://www.bagsolutions.com/comersus/store/comersus_viewItem.asp?idProduct=230 ); it is easily replaceable; not so attractive to thieves, and tending to make my nice bike look less appealing too; and the synthetic materials are lightweight. It is lined with thick foam for insulation that is useful as padding as well. Here it is, when empty:

I removed the foam insulation from the top half of the bag, where it wasn't doing much for cushioning but made the bag a lot bulkier. I added four grommets so that I could bolt it to the eyelets on the rack. I cut the shoulder straps and added Fastex buckles - the straps are adjustable so that the opening can be adjusted and the straps can be pulled snug to secure loads.

Because the sides of the bag are loose, and I don't want my tools and things that I carry around to bounce out or slide around, I also made a small zippered musette bag out of lightweight cotton canvas duck. This was made from scratch, and very crudely. This bag is also useful because I can leave the bike outside and carry the musette with all my contents with me.

Here is the bag semi-full with a reasonable load of groceries:

An odd-shaped cargo of some kind:

A very large box. The bike handled really badly with the load centered way out front like that, but I made it home anyway.

A couple of rolls of 36" x 48" drawings. There were several rolls of 18" drawings inside the bag underneath the large rolls as well:

Rawland rSogn - color tests

2011-02-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

Visit my website to see color tests for the new Rawland rSogn. I am open to color suggestions.

QR lever added to prototype decaleur

2010-09-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

Something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I finally got a quick-release cam lever to replace the nut and bolt I was previously using to fasten my decaleur to the headset-mounted cable hanger. This means I can rapidly get the bag on and off the bike without any tools, and the QR cam should be more secure than the nut and bolt was.

Here's a link to the original decaleur solution, which shows off how the decaleur works a bit more clearly. Below are some snapshots of the QR. I sawed a notch into the cable hanger so that the M5-threaded bolt can get into and out of the hanger, just like an axle into a dropout.

Here's where I bought the cam lever.

The snapshots:

Found! Mafac centerpull and TA rack

2010-08-06T12:38:00.000-07:00

I found this rack while helping Ayelet salvage parts and frames from her parents’ bike collection. It was attached to a Peugeot and served as my payment for helping out.

More info on my blog.

Acorn Boxy Bag mini pump hack

2010-05-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

I hacked my Acorn Boxy Bag, or more specifically the corrugated plastic stiffener I added (which was described in an earlier post here), to support my mini pump. Until now, I had kept the mini pump loose in the main section of the bag, because it's too long to fit in the front pocket where I keep all my tools and spares. Having the pump loose in the main compartment was inelegant, so I added a couple of grommeted holes to the stiffener with two loops of elastic shock cord to hold the pump above the front pocket below the flap. The pictures will explain it.

This is pretty rudimentary stuff, but I thought I would share it here because seeing it might give any readers out there some ideas for similar hacks to suit their own needs.

If I were really enterprising, I would sew something that attached the other contents of the front pocket (spare tube, VAR tire iron/bead jack, Alien multitool, peanut butter wrench, and patch kit) to the stiffener, so that I could pull out and replace the whole kit at once.

Tarik Saleh Reports on the New Cycle Truck

2010-04-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Mad scientist and bicycle-human Tarik Saleh was in town to eat tacos (and other reasons) a couple weeks ago and took the New Cycle Truck for a test ride, something we'd been discussing for about two years before it finally happened. I enjoyed his review of the bike and his ruminations on tacos. It's on his Moscaline blog:

http://tsaleh.blogspot.com/2010/04/james-black-cycletruck-taco-experience.html

Small front rack action shot

2010-04-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Garrett reminded me that there was an awesome action shot from when I went mountain-testing the Small Bag Rack with the Acorn Boxy Bag on it. This image was shot by Esteban (Protorio) on the Rivendell Riders group ride in September 2009:

See Flickr for the full-size and the rest of Esteban's photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25671211@N02/3894982599/in/set-72157622155202441/

A Saddlebag Support for Mitch

2010-04-07T13:46:00.001-07:00

Our new friend Mitch, of Nine Mile Images, in Syracuse requested a saddlebag support like the one we made for my Panasonic. I adjusted the design to suit the smaller frame size.

Here are pictures taken by Mitch of the rack installed:

Cycle Truck Adapted from BMX Bike in Haiti

2010-03-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

I received a very nice email this morning from Ben, who is working for a relief and development organization in Haiti and promoting the adaptation of cargo bikes on the side. He built a surprisingly elegant cycle truck by converting a BMX bike. Pictures and a description of his process appear on Instructables:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-cargo-truck-bicycle/

Admirable!

Padlock to secure cargo bike bag

2009-12-31T15:58:00.000-08:00

My New Cycle Truck cargo bike has a giant pizza delivery bag modified to sit on the front rack. This bag is very well suited to this purpose, and it was quite inexpensive, but I put some work into it so that it would strap securely onto the rack, and I would hate to see it stolen. I also don't want to have to remove it all the time - it's nice to be able to ride to a grocery store and leave the bag on the bike.

So to deter theft, I installed two grommets in the bag, and got a combination padlock with a fairly long shackle. To steal the bag now, A thief would have to cut out the grommets, destroy the padlock, or remove the rack. But I can still remove the bag pretty quickly.

New Cycle Truck cargo bike action pics

2009-12-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

Over the past year, I have been collecting snapshots of my New Cycle Truck cargo bike while loaded with various bulky cargos. I posted a few of these on my cargo bike webpage. See them here:
http://james.architectureburger.com/cycle/cargo.html#loaded
The photos are at the bottom of the page, so they might take a while to load after the other content has loaded.
A sample:

New convertible front rack

2009-11-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

New rack. Front design based on an old Blackburn MTN front rack. The 9" x 12" plywood platform attaches with 2 bolts. The rack is fairly stable with lighter loads - steering got a little funny when carrying two 7-lb bags of ice. considering additional lateral support.

Surly Open Bar

2009-11-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

I am waiting for this bar to be available next Spring.

Shown above is the Surly Four Beer Float bike from the Surly blog. Image source: Surly blog.

Quick fix for sagging Acorn Boxy Bag - Corrugated Plastic Stiffener

2009-11-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Quick fix for sagging Acorn Boxy Bag: I had found that the front pocket of my Boxy Bag was pulling down on the front of the map sleeve/bag top and making it sag in the middle:

So I cut an appropriately sized rectangle out of corrugated plastic ("stratocore"), covered the edges with gaffer's tape (reinforced electrical tape) so that the sharp edges of the plastic would not abrade the bag, and inserted into the front pocket behind my spare tube and tools:

And thus, the bag substantially holds its shape now. As an added bonus, if I ever need some tape for a roadside fix, I could peel the gaffer's tape off the stiffener and reuse it. With stiffener in place:

P-clamp cyclocomputer mount

2009-10-31T13:59:00.001-07:00

The skewed position of the computer on the Mary handlebar had me somewhat miffed, so I modified James' ingenious hack. While not as resourceful as James', I am very pleased with the result. The parts are from the local hardware store, and the steps are simple:

1. A large 1" p-clamp around the fork, along with a machine screw, washers, and nut create a threaded stud - level with the ground and 90 to the bike.

2. A nylon spacer, washer, and nylon locknut are tightened to the machine screw to create a dowel stud. (A cap nut can be used for aesthetics. Then again all stainless hardware can be used, though my local hardware only has zinc-plated p-clamps)

3. A smaller p-clamp clamps to the nylon spacer and attaches to the computer mount as in James' set up.

Smaller p-clamp can be seen here.

Salsa Woodchipper

2009-10-31T12:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.salsacycles.com/amigos/labels/Woodchipper.html

Keeping my eye on this bar. Ugly, but interesting shape.

Homemade rod bending robot

2009-09-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

Our rod bender is not new. But the instructions making the bender is. Check it out here.

Prototype Decaleur

2009-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here is our first prototype decaleur. Constructed from 1/8" steel rod with 1/8" thick plate tabs.

The rod forms a kind of triangle for structural rigidity – a length of lightweight aluminum bar stock reinforces the bag and forms the third side of the triangle.

See more here.

Small handlebar bag rack

2009-08-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

After a few hundred miles with an Acorn Boxy Bag, I am pleased to report that the small handlebar bag rack is working very well. Next project: decaleur!

Saddlebag Support

2009-08-16T12:28:00.001-07:00

A saddlebag support for a large saddlebag. In this case, the Carradice Nelson Longflap. See more here.