Monday, January 9, 2012

Journey of the Boardwalk: Part 19 - Some Additions to the Bike

During the recent lelong sale at West Coast Park, I got myself a nice Biologic Arclite Rack! It is a really decent rack that is very compatible with Dahon folding bikes. The price was not too bad, thus I decided to get it. The mentality at a lelong sale is usually buy first, think later!

Biologic Arclite Rack, weights about 500 grams

As I had rode my bike to the lelong sale, the only way to bring it home is to fix it onto the bike! It fitted well with no issues, although I did remove the rack when I reached home, grease the bolts before re-fixing the rack onto the bike.

This rack is really useful! Last time, I could only bring a very limited amount of items on my bike, as I only had my Dahon Tour Bag and a rear seatpost bag. See how I brought my stuff for an overnight Desaru trip here.

Dahon Tour Bag in front, Sagarider Seatpost Clamp-on bag behind!

With the rack, I can carry odd sized items, albeit with some creativity and a nice long bungee cord. Besides bringing flat items like a bag of clothes, I have also tried carrying a plastic book shelf/divider, photo frames or other odd-shaped items that will not fit into the bags.

Another nice advantage is that I get a place to permanently fix my blue light! I used to have to fix it onto my seatpost, but it will have to be removed occasionally when the seatpost is lowered for folding, or it will be blocked when I use my rear seatpost clamp-on bag. However, with the rack, I have a new bracket on the rack that can be used to mount the blue light.



Good place to put a rear light, does not get blocked or interfere with the mounting of items onto the rack.

Instead of using the original Biologic strap that comes with the rack, I used my own bungee cord which is longer, and has hooks that can hook onto any part of the rack. The original bungee strap is too short to tie down larger items, and the fixing hook is special, such that it can only fix onto the sides, and not other places on the rack.

Can hook onto the same mounting point as the original bungee strap

This bungee cord allows me much more flexibility in strapping things down, as I can choose to wrap 1,2 or 3 times around the items, depending on the size of the items and where I hook the bungee cord.

A nice addition is the having a plastic disk with the LCSG logo on my bike, hung under the saddle bag!

LoveCyclingSG Logo!

Update: I have added the Ortlieb Front Roller Classic Panniers onto my Arclite Rear Rack, read up on the Ortliebs here!

4 comments:

  1. Dahon should give u a new bike and rope u in product development.... given ur passion and ideas to make the bike so much better! looking real good! keep on going(blogging and cycling!)

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  2. I wouldn't mind helping Dahon or Tern... haha maybe someone can send them a link to this blog...

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  3. Great article! Can you tell me where you got your cool blue light?

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    Replies
    1. I bought it online quite a few years ago, can't remember the site anymore. Anyway these blue lights are not very bright, and are not supposed to be used anyway. Should only use red lights at the rear.

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