Two Wheels - Six Strings

Random news and thoughts about various two-wheeled projects and music, especially my band, Skull Full Of Blues.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Mothership

I was on furlough, today, along with most other State Employees in Colorado. So, I decided to test out the second version of my motorcycle-mounted bicycle carrier. I had decided I didn't like the first version, so I started from scratch, on Sunday, and built a completely different version.

I left the house a little after 7:00 A.M., and headed for Mt. Falcon.

By 7:45, I was in the parking lot at the East Trailhead. The motorcycle handled fine, with the load, and the bike never shifted on the rack. I'm pretty satisfied with this version. For one thing, once the bike is off, you can swing the rack in so that it no longer sticks out to the side.

Between five and ten minutes after I started removing the bike from the rack, it was ready to ride.

Forty one minutes after that, I was at the picnic shelter at the top of the trail. I love the view of the valley, from there.

I rode back down, and loaded up, then headed to the coffee shop. As I pulled up, Brad was walking in, with Noella.

"Man, if I had to rely on that to go mountain biking, I'd never go again," he said, looking at the rig.

Me, too, probably. But, I built this up for out-of-town, multi-day trips on which I will ride to a campsite, unload the bike, and ride for a few days before loading it back up. It is a bit inconvenient for short hops like Mt. Falcon or Apex.

x

7 Comments:

At 3:28 AM , Blogger Big Oak said...

That bike carrier is cool!

 
At 8:15 AM , Blogger Jerome said...

Looks cool. I really dig the bicycle. I once built a flat deck side car on my '78 KZ400 to carry my '74 DT250 out to the track for some trail riding. Worked great. Ride a bike to ride a bike. Side cars are limiting though. I was able to haul tools for my work also, and I had 4 other motorbikes to ride when I didn't want a side car.

Check out motoscotch's blog (http://motoscotch.blogspot.com/) and his bicycle hauling setup: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_h2z-xlpiRkM/SqcVEDewCdI/AAAAAAAACOk/iS2SSyWFeEY/s1600-h/P9030045.JPG

 
At 8:50 AM , Blogger Apertome said...

Very cool! My friend Dave talked about rigging up something like this, not sure if he ever did.

What bike is that? It looks sweeeet ...

 
At 9:01 AM , Blogger Jon said...

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

The motorcycle is a 2006 Suzuki DL1000 (V-Strom).

 
At 5:36 PM , Blogger frankenbiker said...

I checked out motoscotch,"cool" I'll bet that setup gets some looks.It seems like it adds alot of width to the motorcycle though(no lanesplitting).

Jon, I recently saw another rack system on a blog,it was welded directely to the frame of a chopper.If I find the pic I'll send you the link.

 
At 5:56 PM , Blogger frankenbiker said...

Anyway the pic is somewhere in FGG's blog roll if you wanna look, I didn't have time to find it.Gotta get back to work.

 
At 9:43 PM , Blogger Doohickie said...

Craziness.

 

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