Any trouble with city bus bike racks?

Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up under
the bus wheels.

Has anyone had a similar experience? How reliable are bus racks generally?

My particular rack is like pic C in the following link, which apparently is
made by Sportworks:

http://tinyurl.com/5jktnn

The spring-loaded support arm did not fall off the bike wheel. (I use a
bungee cord so that cannot happen.) It looked like some part of the support
arm broke, where it attaches to the rack. I did not have time to look at it
closely.

Sportworks link: http://www.bicycleracks.com/busracks.asp .

On 2008-12-10, Jay wrote:
Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up under
the bus wheels.

Did you get the bus number and call CTA? That rack should be taken out of
service until it can be inspected.

--

Kristian Zoerhoff

Kristian M Zoerhoff wrote:
On 2008-12-10, Jay wrote:
Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up under
the bus wheels.

Did you get the bus number and call CTA? That rack should be taken out of
service until it can be inspected.

Didn't the driver notice the bike flopping back and forth and say
something? I've never known your type of problem to happen around here,
but somehow I think if it did the driver would speak up.


Bill

----------------------------------------------------
| True peace is not merely the absence of tension: |
| it is the presence of justice. |
| --Martin Luther King |
----------------------------------------------------

wrote in message
...
Kristian M Zoerhoff wrote:
On 2008-12-10, Jay wrote:
Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on
the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en
route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up
under
the bus wheels.

Did you get the bus number and call CTA? That rack should be taken out of
service until it can be inspected.

Didn't the driver notice the bike flopping back and forth and say
something? I've never known your type of problem to happen around here,
but somehow I think if it did the driver would speak up.


Bill

----------------------------------------------------
| True peace is not merely the absence of tension: |
| it is the presence of justice. |
| --Martin Luther King |
----------------------------------------------------

Kristian,

I was in a bit of shock when the driver called the bike to my attention. I
was just hoping he could stop the bus before the bike fell completely off
the rack. It was a Pace bus, which serves the Chicago suburbs. (CTA is
strictly city limits.) We were exiting the tollway at that point, so the
driver was able to stop. I got out and pulled my bike off the rack, and
brought it inside the bus for the rest of the trip.

Pace buses break down on a regular basis. Every 10 weeks or so, a bus will
break down en route, and either the driver can get it restarted, or they
need to call another bus, to pick us up. Regular Pace bus passengers are not
really surprised by these outages. They also know it does not help to
complain. So reliable bike racks must be way down the Pace priority list.

Bill,

The driver did in fact notice the problem, to his credit. Otherwise, the
bike would probably have wound up under the bus wheels.

Both,

I am certainly going to pay even greater attention to the condition of the
bike rack and support arm. I was already fussing over my bike by attaching a
bungee cord to the support arm. Now I am going to re-double my
pre-observation, checking the support arm bolts. I looked closely tonight,
and I don't think this model bike rack is heavy duty enough. CTA uses the
other model bike rack (see pics in my earlier link). It would not surprise
me if Pace is trying to save a couple bucks (compared with CTA), by using
cheaper bike racks.

The state of public transit in IL is really disgusting, and Pace is the
worst of it. Pace makes CTA look good, and that is scary. Our IL politicians
are world-class crooks. This latest governor thing is just more of the same.
No one in Chicago is shocked that our governor has been arrested.

J.

In article ,
Tom Sherman writes:
Jay Bollyn wrote:
[...]
Pace buses break down on a regular basis. Every 10 weeks or so, a bus will
break down en route, and either the driver can get it restarted, or they
need to call another bus, to pick us up. Regular Pace bus passengers are not
really surprised by these outages. They also know it does not help to
complain. So reliable bike racks must be way down the Pace priority list.[...]

Send a significant political contribution to Mike Madigan and make sure
his staffers know which bus line you ride.

How significant?


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca

Jay Bollyn wrote:
[...]
Pace buses break down on a regular basis. Every 10 weeks or so, a bus will
break down en route, and either the driver can get it restarted, or they
need to call another bus, to pick us up. Regular Pace bus passengers are not
really surprised by these outages. They also know it does not help to
complain. So reliable bike racks must be way down the Pace priority list.[...]

Send a significant political contribution to Mike Madigan and make sure
his staffers know which bus line you ride.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007
LOCAL CACTUS EATS CYCLIST - datakoll

Jay wrote:
Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up under
the bus wheels.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

No, but I have had many occasions when I would have liked to board a
bus with my bike, but my bike did not fit on the rack.

How reliable are bus racks generally?

In terms of the number of trips in comparison to the number of
problems, they are very reliable. I am sure they break or wear out
from time to time, but I have never come across one that wasn't ready
to use.

My particular rack is like pic C in the following link, which apparently is
made by Sportworks:

http://tinyurl.com/5jktnn

The spring-loaded support arm did not fall off the bike wheel. (I use a
bungee cord so that cannot happen.) It looked like some part of the support
arm broke, where it attaches to the rack. I did not have time to look at it
closely.

Sportworks link:http://www.bicycleracks.com/busracks.asp.

The compatibility issue between Sportworks racks and some of my bikes
relates to their wheelbase length and tire diameter. My touring bike
frames (which is to say, almost all my regular bikes) have long
chainstays, long front centers, and are fitted with 700x35 or taller
tires. As a result, most of them won't drop all the way into the
closed-ended track that receives the bike's wheels. Sometimes I can
reverse the bike's front end to overcome this problem (if the bike
allows this), and in a pinch, letting the air out of the tires will
usually permit the bike to be loaded.

Those times when the bike is almost, but not quite, short enough to
drop fully into the rack, I would be able to load it and pretend
everything is OK. But then it would exert much-elevated leverage
forces on both the bike's wheels and the spring-loaded rack arm.

I don't know whether your near-incident had anything to do with the
bike's depth of insertion into the rack, but it's worth considering
the next time you load your bike on one.

Chalo

On 2008-12-11, Tom Keats wrote:
In article ,
Tom Sherman writes:
Jay Bollyn wrote:
[...]
Pace buses break down on a regular basis. Every 10 weeks or so, a bus will
break down en route, and either the driver can get it restarted, or they
need to call another bus, to pick us up. Regular Pace bus passengers are not
really surprised by these outages. They also know it does not help to
complain. So reliable bike racks must be way down the Pace priority list.[...]

Send a significant political contribution to Mike Madigan and make sure
his staffers know which bus line you ride.

How significant?

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

--

Kristian Zoerhoff

"Chalo" wrote in message
...
Jay wrote:
Part of my commute is on a city bus. My bike rides on a bike rack on the
front of the bus. This morning, some part of the bike rack broke en
route,
and very nearly dropped my bike, which of course would have wound up
under
the bus wheels.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

No, but I have had many occasions when I would have liked to board a
bus with my bike, but my bike did not fit on the rack.

How reliable are bus racks generally?

In terms of the number of trips in comparison to the number of
problems, they are very reliable. I am sure they break or wear out
from time to time, but I have never come across one that wasn't ready
to use.

My particular rack is like pic C in the following link, which apparently
is
made by Sportworks:

http://tinyurl.com/5jktnn

The spring-loaded support arm did not fall off the bike wheel. (I use a
bungee cord so that cannot happen.) It looked like some part of the
support
arm broke, where it attaches to the rack. I did not have time to look at
it
closely.

Sportworks link:http://www.bicycleracks.com/busracks.asp.

The compatibility issue between Sportworks racks and some of my bikes
relates to their wheelbase length and tire diameter. My touring bike
frames (which is to say, almost all my regular bikes) have long
chainstays, long front centers, and are fitted with 700x35 or taller
tires. As a result, most of them won't drop all the way into the
closed-ended track that receives the bike's wheels. Sometimes I can
reverse the bike's front end to overcome this problem (if the bike
allows this), and in a pinch, letting the air out of the tires will
usually permit the bike to be loaded.

Those times when the bike is almost, but not quite, short enough to
drop fully into the rack, I would be able to load it and pretend
everything is OK. But then it would exert much-elevated leverage
forces on both the bike's wheels and the spring-loaded rack arm.

I don't know whether your near-incident had anything to do with the
bike's depth of insertion into the rack, but it's worth considering
the next time you load your bike on one.

Chalo

Yes, my bike is quite long, and the rear wheel does not go down very far
into a closed-end track. I think the rear wheel simply bounced out of the
track, so the bike was hanging onto the rack by only the front wheel. Now, I
am using a second bungee cord, which ties the rear wheel to the rack. Some
of the racks are open-end, which is better for me. But I will still be using
two bungee cords.

I have seen many Pace buses with bike racks in disrepair. Sometimes the
spring-loaded arm does not work properly. Sometimes the rack does not lock
in the down position, so the rack tends to bounce around on a bumpy road. I
have seen racks which are bent, probably by the driver running into
something.

J.