(Photo: Carl Larson, Bicycle Transportation Alliance)
Last week, we reported that floating-fleet carsharing service Car2go was preparing to start testing a new feature in Portland: external bike racks.
Yesterday, Bicycle Transportation Alliance staffer Carl Larson helped the company test whether their product was up to the job of hauling the full diversity of our local bike fleet.
Verdict: basically, yes. It worked for Larson’s 1967 Moulton 4-speed:
And for his friend Craig’s seven-foot longtail, 90 pounds while loaded with bags:
The car2go rack has passed "weird bike test #2" with flying colors.
A photo posted by Carl Larson (@lilbikesbigfun) on
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And Larson said the rack worked “surprisingly well” for his friend Joanna’s “crazy triple-tall tandem,” which he estimated is at least seven feet tall:
A photo posted by Carl Larson (@lilbikesbigfun) on
Larson said the instability of the tallbike was actually due to its length rather than its height.
On Tuesday night, he also tested it with his hammock-seat Pedersen bicycle and a standard mountain bike.
“I still want to try a little bike,” Larson added in a phone interview. “Just for fun.”
One downside of the racks (which Larson said are likely to be permanently affixed to the outside of many Portland cars2go): getting a bike on and off them requires a car’s key, so it can only be done while the car2go clock is running. Also, Larson said it’d be nice if the racks could hold a second bike, too.
“I’ve been really, really impressed with how versatile and quick to use this rack is,” Larson said. “And I think it will be a real help when people are living multimodal lives and things come up.”
Got opinions about car2go bike racks? You can take their survey here.
Update 11/19: Larson continues his important experimentation:
The car2go rack handled "Weird Bike Test" #5 incredibly well. Thanks Kirk!
A photo posted by Carl Larson (@lilbikesbigfun) on