Tortuga Travelers: The bike/SUP drawer

The drawer that replaced the Big Black Box turned out pretty well. It holds its weight nicely, the plastic boxes fit snugly, so they won't easily get thrown around, and some velcro angle brackets left over from our old VW Sportwagen are handy to ensure that if the need arises.

Sharon loves her water sports. I don't want to tow 20+' of kayaks all over. I successfully paddled around on a SUP during our Baja Un-cruise. Ergo, we need to travel with a couple of inflatable SUPs, along with our bikes.

So I now have an Tribal Boards inflatable SUP, and Sharon will buy her own in April when it arrives. Mine currently fits on top of the three storage bins, but there isn't room there for two. So the bikes will move to an outside rack when we are toting the SUPs. But putting the SUPs in the bike area means dragging them over the axle brackets that are screwed into the floor.

To avoid the angled lifting, and because the first drawer came out so nice, I ordered another set of 40" drawer slides. To hold the bikes, the slide has to be longer than the first one, since my bike is a lot longer than four feet, and extends into the area between the wheel wells. So the shelf is 51" long for Sharon's bike, and 58" long for mine. Another issue is the height of the bed over the bikes, and my handlebars. If I mound the bike axle on the shelf normally, my stem won't clear the bed. Oops! So the front of the shelf is lower than the back to provide enough height clearance for my bike, while also making sure the axle is above the sides of the drawer so I can insert and remove the axle from the bracket. Otherwise it's the same as the first drawer. Since it will be fully extended to put the bikes on and take them off, I have to be doubly sure the far end is secure.