Bam! — A Rough Start to Gaspé

Today we started our summer trip in Speedy. We are heading to the Gaspé peninsula in Quebec, a trip we planned to do a couple of years ago, but never made it.

We did not get off to a good start. Today's journey took us from Cohasset to Cohasset via Quincy.

We got off a bit late for us, at nearly 9AM, but it was Sunday, so we were not worried about the traffic...a mistaken belief. Our route was to take us through Quincy, along Wollaston Beach, then onto the Expressway through Boston and north on I-93 most of the way through New Hampshire.

We were in traffic along Wollaston Beach. Having just pulled into the left lane to get around a stopped trash truck, I had to stop for another car which pulled out in front of us—Bam! We were hit from behind by a kid in a pickup truck.

Not a very good way to start our trip. We pulled over to inspect the damage. Fortunately, Speedy itself, was undamaged, but our new, heavy-duty bike rack was trashed and my mountain bike was dragging on the road. We took the kid's particulars, managed to load the bikes into Speedy and the rack platform as well, and trundled back to Cohasset to figure out our next step.

We considered leaving the bikes and rack behind, but that would cramp our travels quite a bit (In retrospect, it might have been a better idea). My mountain bike was going nowhere as both wheels were now rather warped. We decided to rebuild the rack and take along my touring bike like we did last winter and try to get back on the road by the afternoon.

The rack is based on a very heavy swing-out base from Stowaway, called the SwingAway. The base is made of heavy-gauge steel and weighs about 70 pounds. It did not get bent, but a secondary latch was broken. It isn't necessary, so we were starting from scratch.

I built a bike rack last fall on top of this base by bolting on a 2'x4' piece of ½"plywood and then mounting bike adapters on that platform.

These are slotted angled chocks that the wheels slid into, holding the bike upright. By adjusting the distance between pairs of opposite facing chocks, a bike was tightly wedged and could stand on its own. We just tied the bikes down to rings bolted to the plywood to keep them stable and in place.

Slightly Warped Wheel Chocks

When the truck hit Speedy, it hit the plywood and the outside set of rack adapters, shearing the plywood right out of the bolts and bending the adapters. The plywood platform acted as a sacrificial bumper.

Underside of Rack

When the plywood was driven forward, it caught the latch handle...

So...time to rebuild...minus two chocks. After dismantling the wrecked rack, I found a similar piece of plywood in the attic and proceeded to mount it...but didn't get very far.  

I laid out the plywood on the SwingAway base and started to drill bolt holes in the plywood by drilling up from the bottom through the mounting holes in the SwingAway. Using a ³⁄₈" wood bit, I promptly drilled through the plywood....and into my thumb.

This was not a good move, particularly since it hurt and was bleeding badly. A large wood bit leaves a rather jagged tear. It was time for a visit to Harvard-Vanguard. 

Two hours later, we were back home with two stitches in my thumb and a rather large bandage. Fortunately, no muscles, tendons or bone were involved—just a flesh wound, so they say.

Although it was now obvious that we were not going to be able to finish in time to leave today, we went back to rack building. While Ellen held the rack still. I marked the holes from the underside, then turned the platform over and drilled to holes from the top, like I should have done earlier, rather than rushing. Time to bolt it onto the base and cobble together a bike mount. 

We figured that we could use one of the adapters for each bike, holding one wheel and keeping the bike upright, then fasten blocks along the sides of the other wheel to keep it in place. After strapping the bike to the platform, it should be quite stable.

We placed Ellen's bike on the platform to find the correct position so the rear door would clear the bike when it was swung out of the way. It didn't seem to fit on the platform. I hauled out the old rack to compare the layout and found that the new platform wasn't 2'x4'. It was several inches short.

Time to start over. After finding another piece of plywood, a true 24"x48", we did it all over again....except for the drilling through the thumb part.

By 5PM we were done. It isn't pretty, no rounded corners, no paint and no reflectors, but it looks like it will work for this trip. Maybe a new design when we get back.

We are hoping for an early start tomorrow and we will, with luck, be on our way to Quebec.