Rackufacture: The Eberly Tow-Bike Rack

This wasn't intentionally a teaser. I was just short on time due to a fatbike rack project of my own that took over my life and sanity this past week, but more on that another time. a la Pual Harvey then, here's the rest of the story . . .

Back in January, Jonathan Eberly got in touch about building a rack. Here's a snip from one of the planning stage emails:

"What I am thinking about is a Porteur Rack. Nice, Solid. Something like a pass and stow maybe. Looking for generator light mount under left side. This will be for the 640. As for size? How does not to big and not to small sound? I Have a little nitto M12 that I can swap for when I dont need the platform but otherwise I imagine this will stay on the bike.

Another possible idea, if its even possible, is a rear rack that can have a front wheel drop it in, like an oval on one side of the rear triangle, to tow a bike. It'd be a one trick pony but when I needed it it'd be pretty rad to have."

Uhh yeah, that second paragraph. I love how he just kind of slipped it in there. The dude obviously knows me too well.  My response was something along the lines of "this is too awesome not to do!"  The thing is, you or I might have a need to tow another bike once or twice in our entire lives, but  with Jon, when he says he will "use it all the time", you don't have any idea of exactly how, but knowing him, you just know it will be true. So the porteur was quickly out of the picture and the tow-bike rack was fully front and center.

Subsequently, there was some web searching and a thread posted to an online group we both belong to and then post-subsequently, a bunch more brainstorming and concept melding. Fast forward then, and here's the actualized build sequence . . .

For what it's designed to do, it's incredibly efficient in terms of labor and materials.
(Photo taken pre-beard apocalypse)

Fit up.
(Photo taken post-beard apocalypse)

The gloss black bit confuses the picture (sorry). it's the lowrider rack on my Elephant.  Focus on the red and silver . .
Point is, the rack uses a standard quick release skewer and is really easy to hook a bike up to.

The obvious question and what's not shown here is that the front wheel gets lashed to the front triangle of the tow-ee.

Armed with the back story as you now are, I think you'll be better able to appreciate this vid in it's full glory, so allow me to re-post, given the added context . . .



Superb vision, planning and execution, Jon. And as a side note, it's great to know who to call now, for roadside assistance.