In our initial tour to the Maritimes, we had the bikes separated by a row of storage boxes. We found that those boxes were a mess, trying to reach the back ones. The gear in them was roughly assigned by function, but the rearmost open top milk crate became a mishmash of junk we'd store properly "later".
In version 2 we put the bikes together on one side, creating far more room for the other storage. To address getting the right box, I built a big box with slides to separate it into three compartments that could slide out to get to the back compartments.
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| The pared down box in its space |
Initially, I built it too tall, so we had to pull it out to get to even the first compartment. And while the depth was no problem for my arms, Sharon couldn't reach the bottom easily. So I cut it down. But it as still heavy, and a pain in the neck to move. When we were carrying odd sized stuff (like boxes of food for a bike festival) it was easier to leave the box at home and just used the empty space directly.
So we've decided to leave the box in our garage for stuff, and replace it with a sliding board. On the board we'll try to organize our stuff into several plastic bins. We can slide the board out to reach the bins, and it should be simpler than all the weight of the box.
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| A cleaner repository for gardening supplies |
So after a lot of talking to friends and web searching I bought a couple of
Firgelli Drawer Slides with a supposed 400 lb capacity. By the time they arrived, I knew just what I wanted to do, and put it all together in one day. I cut a piece of OSB plywood left over from another the flooring project to fit the space, then cut a 1x3x8 in half for the outside rails and glued/screwed them to the OSB. Then I attached a slide to each, and then attached the other half to a pair of 1x2s. Then I took another 1x2 and created cross braces between the slides, and then glued/screwed a piece of plywood onto the 1x2 frame. Some left over felt got stapled to the top, the handle from the original box attached to the front, and then the whole thing was secured with a few 1" angle brackets.
Except for the brackets, it was all done outside of the van, which was much easier on my back. It can hold lots of plastic bins, and we have a set of braces left over from our VW Sportwagen which attach nicely to the felt to hold everything in place on the slide.
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| laying out the 1x3 on the base |
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| Sitting in place. |
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| There's room for a second row of bins if needed. |
