Nice Rack...

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I may despise a lot of things about moving, but one GREAT result is the streamlining and organizing of stuff. I love the idea of being active outside, and we are pretty good at it, but the reality of taking the kids out and saying "look at all this beautiful nature; go play" is greatly helped when there are plenty of modes available to facilitate movement. So we have bikes, trikes, big wheels, the jogger, and so on.  And they all make a big, glorious mess in the garage. Fantastic for contemplating life and family and health. Not so great for parking the car in the winter.

The before--sort of. Pay no attention to the X'd out finished rack. You'll see it soon enough.

Of course, you can get hooks and straps and stuff to hang bikes in a garage, but the kids can't work those very well except to rip them out, and that would be counterproductive. And you can buy actual bike racks like they have in schools, except those get heavy and pricey pretty quickly.

So through a series of Pinterest click-throughs I came upon an article from Kids Activities Blog and said "That's it!" Out loud, for all to hear. This thing could be adjusted in size to fit our specific needs, disassembled for moving, AND the cost of materials was under $60.  Badda boom, badda bing. I pinned it, and told the Cat Daddy about it, and bided my time because we were just getting ready to move and it seemed wiser to hold off until we were in place.

The Cat Daddy was skeptical, as usual. But I forged ahead, as usual. Now, I will tell you every time to do your due diligence on any DIY project. You need to go through and consider if you will alter the plans for your situation, make sure all the math is correct, and perform an overall sanity-check. 

I will also tell you that I chose to do none of that this time around, and it cost me two extra 10' PVC rods and two extra trips to the home improvement store. Not too big a deal really, but depending on your distance from said store it could spell disaster, so just make sure you consider the variables here.

I printed out two articles: the original article on Kids Activities Blog, and its source article from the Utah Mountain Biking club, which had some really good diagrams and clarification (I'll link both at the bottom of this post for easy reference).

The plans given will build a 6-bike rack out of 1" PVC pipe and associated parts. You CAN cement the pieces together with pipe dope, but I found that using a rubber mallet to seat them was plenty sturdy for our purposes.

There was a small debate about which tool to use for cutting the pipe. The Cat Daddy recommended our little jigsaw, which I used for a PVC baby gate a couple years ago, but I remembered stability had been an issue. Which is bound to happen when one is using a weight bench for a workbench, but whatevs. The point is, we have a mitre saw with a frickin' laser beam, and why should the Cat Daddy be the only one to use the cool power tools?

I did not account for blade thickness in my measurements, which for the most part wasn't a problem. As long as you're within 1/8" or so you should be good. I had a couple pieces that were off by more than 1/4" (measure twice cut once, people), so I recut them using excess pipe scraps.

Cutting PVC makes you think about a delicious mess of shredded coconut.

My total needed pipe length was on the order of 44'-ish, so I purchased 5 10-foot pipes and cut as follows:

• 12      18" long pieces
• 12      10" long pieces
• 27      8" long pieces
• 18      1.75" long pieces (connectors)
• 42      tees
• 6        elbows 

The supply list with my edits. Source: here.

Actually, first I cut according to the original dimensions given in the picture, where I should have seen that the original 13" dimension was wrong.  I mean, clearly the longest pieces are way more than 3" longer than the 10" pieces.  I noticed the number discrepancy in the Utah article, then I looked back at the above picture and whacked myself on the forehead for not seeing it sooner. DIY projects give me tunnel vision. 

So I headed off to the store and grabbed two more 10' pipes, and went home & cut them into 18" pieces. And then, finally, I was done cutting.

Done cutting, including the original, now-useless, 13" pieces. 

As I moved on to the assembly phase, I soon realized that the measuring-and-cutting phase was by far the longest and most tedious, because the rack came together super-quick. Neither article exactly gave a specific procedure, so feel free to switch things up if you're feeling all crazy and non-conformist.

I went with the main frame first, and did the vertical members. Each rod is an 18" piece and a 10" piece, joined by a tee, with tees added at the top & bottom. Except for the end rods, which have elbows instead of tees at the top & bottom.

You may be able to see in the picture that I lined up the pieces so the red pipe printing is all facing the same way.  You don't have to take the time to do that, obvs, but if you're a bit of a control freak and like your PVC items to look more polished than average, it's worth the effort.

Rods made of 18"s, 10"s, tees, and elbows.

Next I used the little 1.75" connectors to make 6 pairs of rods. Here's where I added gentle taps with the rubber mallet to get things lined up properly. If you don't have a rubber mallet a regular hammer will work fine, as long as you add cushioning (phone book, folded towel, etc) so you don't bust the pipes.

Connectors joined the rods into pairs.

From here I joined each pair with 8" pieces at the tops & bottoms. I got a little excited and moved onto the support arms before I took a picture of just the main frame, but you get the idea. Rubber mallet taps as needed.

8" pieces joined pairs into the frame. I got a little excited and started on the support arms.

Each support arm pair was made of 2 8" pieces, a tee on each end, and a connector between the tees. Except of course for the end pairs which used an elbow in place of one tee.  Tap-tap-tap, went the rubber mallet.

Support arms from 8" pieces, connectors, and tees/elbows

"...38, 39, 40 tees. Hmmmm..."

Here is where I blamed my children for stealing 2 tees before I counted and realized the original list was wrong, and the little thieves hadn't swiped any tees after all. After 40 tees I was short, so I ran and bought 2 more, garnering quizzical looks from the Home Depot staff. 

"Is this all for you today?" 

"Yep. I was two short." 

"Ah."

Done! Thank you, rubber mallet. Note the well-worn printouts, as well.

This was a surprisingly good project to do with the kiddos, or at least with kiddos in the vicinity. His Highness and the Littler One helped with the measuring and marking. I offered to let His Highness do a couple of cuts, but he opted out this time around. Both boys functioned as sawhorses, supporting the long ends of pipe during cuts. And when they got bored with the actual work of it, they took turns with Tiny E, rolling objects down pipe ramps and so forth. Physics!

The Utah article quoted about an hour to build their 3-bike rack, so I estimated this would take about 2 hours. This is accurate in the same way that "30-Minute Meals" with Rachael Ray is accurate, meaning the time required is going to be highly variable. If you work with tools regularly and don't have to make extra store trips, 2-3 hours is probably about right. If you have extra trips, and have little helpers in & out along the way, and break in the middle to make lunch and put the baby down to nap, and take time to shop vac all the little bits when you're done, expect closer to 4-6 hours. 

So organized you could park a car in there.

Once I placed the rack and bikes, I was pleased as punch. Even the Cat Daddy said, "It's not too bad," which in everyday speak translates, "Wow, great job Skerrib! You are a woman of noble character. Eshet Chayil!"

And of course now that I have a baseline from which to deviate, I'm thinking about changes I might make, such as adding more sections and/or spacing out the current sections to leave more room for trikes and sundries between the bikes.

Take a look, and go forth...

Kids Activities Blog post

Utah Mountain Biking post