(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:
Advertisement
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:
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:
Wow. People are still riding tall bikes. Huh….
Probably not in this wind 🙂
Sounds like someone had a bad experience…
I think a lot of people have…
Just came back to this thread… Haha. Sensitive much?
Never have tried one nor interested.
I love this! Not only to respond favorably to popular demand, but to do it with humor as well.
Blue Monstrosity, represent!
https://www.spinlister.com/rides/1177-bike-cargo-portland-or
If you’re mounting or unmounting a bike, you’re tying up the car and keeping anyone else from using it. Seems fair, that.
It would be nicer if it could take as many bikes as there are seats in the car. Namely, two.
Good point, John. I agree: it’d stink to walk up to an unreserved car only to find someone fiddling around with attaching their bike to it. The problem I foresee is people ending their trip and then walking to the back of the car only to realize that they must start a new trip in order to get the key and retrieve their bike. Whatever. We’ll get used to it!
Someone is actually able to ride the bike on the first pic?
Do the bike racks fold up? I think a lot of people like the Car2Gos because of how tiny they are to get into little spots downtown and such. Adding a rack adds length that may be difficult to see through the mirrors during the parking and driving process.
And dare I say this, not everyone rides bikes. Some people that use Car2Go are just walkers and drivers. Are they going to be on every one? This might turn some users off.
I believe the plan is to have them on just some cars (like how just some of them are electric).
The trunk access issue doesn’t seem like a huge problem to me. If you’re traveling with a bike how much extra stuff are you usually going to put into a tiny trunk anyway?
Getting there, but when are they going to supply a bike rack to carry the Car2Go???