Kickstands and Racks

You can use a scrap of rubber from an old bike tire inner tube to improvise a no-slip/no-scuff tip for your kick stand.

I folded a wad of inner tube over the end of my kickstand and zip-tied it in place. This makes it safe to park on surfaces such as your bedroom’s beautiful hardwood floor.

I was partly inspired by an Instructable article that describes many uses for old inner tubes. Since I recently decommissioned a tube, I’ve got some material to play with.

In other news, I recently completed installation and reinforcement of a set of front racks, thus greatly increasing my expeditionary cargo capacity.

The side racks are Delta Shock Treatment racks – contrary to the description, they do work with disc brakes. The kit comes with two kinds of mounting hardware – I used the hose clamp approach, which affords enough flexibility in positioning to avoid conflict with other components. (Note the Nashbar version of the kit does not include the “optional cross brace”.)

The front rack is Nashbar’s aptly-named Front Rack. It requires additional reinforcement, in part because it pivots at the brake boss mounts. The default support is intended to connect to the center of the fork, but it wasn’t compatible with my fork, so I ended up adding struts to the side racks. This configuration is sturdy and stable.

These front racks are compatible with my detachable baskets. I haven’t ridden around with the baskets on front, as I suspect they might interfere with steering more than other loads, but it’s nice to know I’ve got four hardpoints if I need them!

Posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009. Tags: bike.