DIY flat mount bike rack for Dissent rear accessory panel

[tbisaacs]

I’ve been trying to find my ideal bike solution to work with my Dissent rear accessory panel. There are lots of ways I could have solved this, but like I said, I’m stubborn.

• I want to keep my accessory panel. I’m aware that dissent sells other swing out arms with a receiver hitch but those are for a hard case or Jerry cans
• I want it to swing out with my swing out. No extra steps
• I can leave it on but also easily take it off
• Doesn’t kill my departure angle
• Isn’t offset to one side or the other
• Doesn’t require me to take traction boards on or off.

I’ve used a Yakima spare ride that is designed for a jeep center mounted spare and it’s sub optimal.

You can see that it’s very offset to one side. And I’m not tall, so it’s pretty challenging to get the bike up. Also this style rack only works with road bike style frame geometry.

So, lo and behold, I was visiting with @grinchy, scoping out his home made rack that used Lolo mounts and got an idea.

The general gist:

Use an extruded aluminum bar to flat mount to the panel, and then mount the lolo parts to that.

I’ll skip to the end but after a bunch of fiddling, I have something really solid that is great for a single bike and will work with any frame:

To keep it solid and free of excess twist, I bolted the rail directly through the accessory panel and frame using 1/4 20 carriage bolts. I simple removed the existing panel bolts and went right through.

It’s really solid. Went for a long bumpy drive and didn’t see any excess sway.

Todo:

• attach the foot that holds the rear wheel rest with a locking hinge that slots into the 8020 rail. This will allow me to fold it up out of the way when I’m not hauling a bike.
• Figure out some deterrence grade locking solution

 

[tbisaacs]

Operation

 

[grinchy]

So baller.

 

[grinchy]

I like a chain. It’s defeatable, but so is pretty much everything with portable angle grinders and portable bandsaws. There are more expensive versions of course.

Chain
Edit changed link

 

[Artie]

Looks great! My only concern would be the extremely small width of the bike, I can see someone running into that at a red light or stop sign.

Otherwise, very impressive and add a new trick to the skill set of the versatile dissent bumper.

 

[tbisaacs]

Looks great! My only concern would be the extremely small width of the bike, I can see someone running into that at a red light or stop sign.

Otherwise, very impressive and add a new trick to the skill set of the versatile dissent bumper.

Yeah I’m thinking about maybe a flag I can strap to the wheel or something.

 

[tbisaacs]

I've been using this thing for a couple of weeks and it's pretty friggen perfect for my needs. I've made a couple of adjustments:

• Simplified / standardized all the hardware. I can take the rack off in 5 minutes if I need to.
• I added a slick locking hinge that allows me to stow the foot in an upright position when not in use.
• I added a kayak flag for safety
• Clocked the handlebar mount to 9 o'clock position which allows me to drape the drop bars over the maxtrax. It makes fit super tidy and eliminates almost all of the sway.

Here it is in it's lowest position. If I need to, I can slide the whole mount up about 10" so the rear wheel is up high.

 

[clrussell]

Solid install. I like

 

[jlm43]

Great setup and love the Trek 5200. If I remember correctly, that's the first generation to have carbon lugs. Previous frames had the anodized aluminum lugs and Aegis made carbon tubes.