Bicycle Basket
A Bianchi Bike
I purchased a classic Bianchi bicycle with a magnesium frame. The look was that of the classic Italian bike. I wanted to continue with this tradition, and turn the bike into something that paid homage to its heritage.
I sought a way to mount a wicker basket on the rear. I spent a lot of time looking for aftermarket products that would allow one to mount a basket to the rear of a bike. Unfortunately, I only found metal baskets, or strange pseudo baskets. I didn't find anything that would actually allow someone to mount a basket to a bike.
There are, of course, mounting solutions that are easy enough to employ, for example, I could have easily mounted a basket to the rear rack via zip ties. However, zip ties are temporary, and must be snipped if they are to be removed. Even if I used "reusable" style zip ties, they would still be a hassle to mount on and off.
I decided to create my own style locking ring for a mount. First, the bike:
As you can see, it has a rear rack, but no basket. Let's fix that! I opened up my favorite CAD editor FreeCAD and got to work.
The first thing I needed to do was to create a mount that would attach to the rear rack. I didn't want anything that could possibly mar the beautiful paint. I wanted something that didn't rely on screws or clamps and would just snap into place. After playing with tolerances and measuring, I ended up with the following:
I now needed a way to mount the basket to my mount. For this, I decided to employ a ring with grooves built into it. Here's a closeup of what I made:
As you can see, it is a ring with a bunch of edges. Underneath those edges a male plug slides in, twists, and securely locks a basket.
Here is what the male plug looks like:
The male plug is attached to the bottom of the basket. In order to attach the male plug to the bottom of the basket, a ring is provided that you can bolt through the wicker basket.
Here is what the finished product looks like:
Here is how it can twist off the mount:
It is at this point that you could lift it off the rack.
I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to build something like this for yourself, here are the FreeCAD files: