Steve_sr

Hello,

It looks like I will be doing some traveling and using a recycled cardboard bike box to get under the airlines 50 pound weight restrictions. I will be going through airports and possibly train stations and was thinking that it would be nice to come up with some type of detachable wheels that I could put on to at least one end of the box to avoid having to drag it across the parking lot / tarmac / pavement, etc. The wheelies can either be stored in the box with the bike or other luggage.

Have any of you ever done this or have any ideas that might work? Extra credit for pictures!

Thanks,
Steve

Norts

I tried to attache an URL but I havent posted enough times yet. If you search Bike Box Roller you'll get a few ideas.
I am heading to the US from Tasmania and I have made something similar not as well engineered as this but hopefully will do the job. Mine only has to be a one off for about a km of walking. Once I get to my motel it will probably go in the bin.

RCMoeur 

I thought the wheels went on the inside. (OK, had to say that)

There are small light folding carts designed for travel that could be attached to the box with tape or bungees. A small 3-wheel caster would be simpler, but might be hard to attach to the box.

Steve_sr

Here is the link but they are apparently out of business as well as the Crateworks.com referenced in the comments.
https://singletrackworld.com/2019/05...ase-on-wheels/

Kelly I

https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/...ng-a-bike-box/

On our summer flight to Spain, I asked at TSA (Vail, CO) if such a wheel system would be allowed. They said it depended on each airline. You could do something removable at the counter, just to be safe.

indyfabz

I was sad to see Crateworks go away. I still have one of its plastic boxes from the early 2000s. It has served me well. At least 11 round trip flights or shipments, but it’s showing its age.

Tourist in MSN

Thank you for that link, looks like an interesting DIY home project.

Tourist in MSN

Do you ever ever see a worn out skate board in the trash?

If you are handy with tools, you could make a DIY type of gizmo like the link (above) to that other one using a pair of skate board wheels or roller blade wheels.

At stores like Good Will or similar charity stores you often see semi-worn luggage with wheels for cheap. The wheels from one of those attached to a board might work?

I have no clue if this would handle a 40 pound plus bike box. With the wheels rotating instead of fixed in a straight line, on sloping surfaces it could roll away from you and fall over. I thought of this because where I used to work they had some of these for computers but nobody used them and they were eventually discarded. I think it would work better if there was a way to make two of the wheels stay in a straight line, or maybe all four. If you can't make the wheels stay in a straight line, I think this would not work because the bike box would be too tall to handle.
https://www.amazon.com/VIVO-Computer-.../dp/B074P76TBW

Steve_sr

My plan would be to make it removable so the wheels could be stowed in the bike box or in other luggage

The only drawback would be keeping the cardboard from getting wet and turning into mush.

Kelly I

I have a friend who canceled his trip because they were driving to the airport with his boxed bike on top of the car. It rained so heavily during the drive that the box was starting to melt.

for his next trip, he painted shellac on the box. It also did not rain!

Steve_sr

Here is yet another interesting reusable bike box:
https://squirtcycling.us/collections...ducts/bike-box

... which also appears to be unavailable in the U.S. Appears to be private labeled from:
https://www.bikeboxcompany.com/shop

saddlesores

easy-peasy!

buy a used skateboard at goodwill or ebay for around $10, duct tape to bottom of carton. give it away after you check in your luggage.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/36304388617...item54871a145b

Duragrouch

Don't use luggage wheels, they are cheap and fall apart. Cheap unsealed bearings, the urethane separates from the plastic core, they fall apart. I just repaired a quality luggage carryon roller, replaced the factory wheels with inline skate wheels salvaged from skates being thrown out, even cheap inline skate bearings are plenty good, and these wheels had high-grade bearings. Look for larger diameter skate wheels.

I would fabricate a "seat" from plywood that one lower end of the box would sit in. The sides would each have a hole near the bottom, into which you would poke a screwdriver, then push a threaded axle through from one side to the other, put on a spacer washer, wheels, and two nuts to be locked against each other on each side. The axle holds the seat in place on the cardboard, the holes in the cardboard won't take much vertical load but they'll only yield until the seat takes the load from the bottom. Put a handle on the other end of the box, lift and roll.

I was about to joke that a hoverboard (from Back to the Future part III) would work well, but that's actually now a term for a small foot platform with two wheels, self-balancing motorized, usually about $100; One of those that no longer works electrically might fit well under the bike box.

djb

get thee to a nunnery and ask if they kept one of the mattress bags that the nun bed mattresses came in.
or go to a mattress store
Ive generally been lucky in that my bike boxes have fit in cars, and or just been lucky for no rain the few times bike boxes have been out in the open--but when I think about the couple of times theyve been exposed to the elements, it was after I landed and could have found another bike box for the return.

good point to bring up though, to either have a bag available or simply buy plastic from a hardware store or something and tape it up, for getting to the airport

Duragrouch

HAH! I like what you did there.

djb

I hadn't cottoned onto this comment before.
I agree, having a wheel system on your bike box going on airport conveyor belts, around unseen corners and miles of behind the scenes airport baggage conveyor belts, through doors etc, around other baggage, baggage carts used by the baggage handlers--- in my opinion is just asking for them to get ripped off and wrecking your bike box.
An accident waiting to happen.

Steve_sr

Well, here is bike box wheels 2.0! I borrowed from the original Aussie design and made some, what I consider significant, improvements as follows:

1. The fold out "outriggers" have been moved to the inside of the bottom angle for better contact with the box.
2. The attachment points for the straps on the wheel assembly has been moved to the end of the "outrigger" braces for more leverage in holding the wheel assembly to the box with the tension that can be exerted by the straps.
3. Slide design was changed to smaller angle to eliminate the need to find telescoping square/3/4 tubes. It was hard enough to find the other aluminum stock.

Materials:
Qty 2 - 2" x 2" x 1/8" x 4"- Large angle - Metal Supermarkets
1" x 1/2" x.090" - Rectangular tube - Axle carrier. - Metal Supermarkets - Couldn't find .062" wall so had to file the nuts down to fit!
Qty 1 - 1" x 1" x 1/16" x 7" - Slide angle - Lowes or HD
Qty 4 - 1" x 1/8" x 3-1/2" - Folding outriggers - Lowes or HD
#8 flat-head screws with nylock nuts and washers/lock washers as appropriate
Qty 2 - 60" main diagonal strap - Gear-Aid 60" straps from REI
1-1/4" split rings - Top corner harness - hardware store
Qty 2 - 26" x 1" nylon strap - top corner harness
Qty 2 - Used skateboard wheels
Qty 4 - 22mm x 8mm x 7mm skateboard wheel bearings - Find ones that are rubber sealed on both sides
Qty 2 - Skateboard wheel bearing spacers.
Qty 2 - 5/16" wingnuts
Qty 2 - 5/16" x 2" - Threaded rod - axles
Qty 4 - 5/16" Nuts - Axle assembly & holder.

Photos:

Duragrouch

Brilliantly designed!

Are the wheel axles just threaded directly into the aluminum extrusion, or is there a nut inside?

If you have any problems with anything yielding, inline skate wheels, being much thinner, will bring the wheel centerline in a great deal, to reduce axle bending moment, and they also have superb bearings. There is also always the possibility of using a long single thru-axle for both wheels, so the axle support extrusion is only loaded in vertical shear, but that adds weight and bulk when being transported.

Tourist in MSN

Looks very well thought out and functional.

I made a couple of small wooden things similar to that to put under the back end of my kayak or canoe, so I can lift up the front and roll it on pavement or grass. The smallest one is only used on pavement, I used in-line skate wheels. To avoid having wheel alignment problems I used a single axle shaft of aluminum rod, and small clip pins to hold the wheels on. But the single axle would not allow you to remove the wheels to reduce volume like your design. In my case, making it more compact was unimportant.

Very good job.

Steve_sr

I didn't trust threads into aluminum for multiple assembly/disassembly so there is a steel nut that is epoxied inside the aluminum box.

I would hope that I don't have to worry about anything bending. The bike boxes can only weigh 50 lbs max to avoid airlines exhorbitant overweight fees. So the heavy end of the box might be 35 pounds spread over two wheels is unlikely to bend anything. I'll keep the roller blade wheels in mind if these are found lacking. I must of hit about 10 thrift stores and only found zero roller blades and only one skateboard with bad wheel bearings.

That would also mess with thee adjustability. This is designed for bike box width of 8"-12".

Duragrouch

Good man. I was hoping as such, but couldn't see inside the box section. If the nut comes loose, I'd recomment a rivet nut or rivnut, it works like a hollow wall anchor but for greater loads. Wiki page shows them, but not crimped in place. I've used for applications where the original threading into thin aluminum stripped. Permanent fix.