Make a Rear Bike Rack from Scavenged Kitchen Materials

I've been wanting a cargo rack for my bike for awhile, but didn't have the cash to buy a manufactured one.  Then my eye fell upon the beautiful pot rack I made a couple of years ago, and it occurred to me that some of that wire shelving might be just the thing I needed.  There was some trial and error, but in the end, I put together a functional rack.

Step 1 Tools and Materials

My primary motivator here was "cheap".  This cost me a grand total of $1.75 because I had to buy a bag of cable ties.  Everything else I had in storage.  Obviously, if you don't have what I have, you'd have to buy it.

Materials
1 Bicycle (mine is a GT Vantara I got from a Craigslist seller recently)
1 Wire Basket
2 Steel Shelf Supports
Cable Ties
Non-Stranded Wire

Tools
Slip-joint pliers
Needle-nose pliers
Wire cutters
Allen wrench (4mm in my case)
Flashlight ('cause I did this at night)

Comments

[BroCraig]

Can't find the wire basket anywhere. Any substitute material?

[bookman413]

If you're really cheap and you have tin snips or something suitable to cut a tomato sauce can with, you can make brackets out of that metal. Fold it in three to hide the sharp edges. I've done it. It works. It's definitely cheap. On a similar note, I'm making some cheap hose clamps out of scrap metal and some bolts (to tighten them with) this weekend to secure some baskets onto the side of my (expensive and strong) rear bike rack.

[Dr Qui]

Nice job,

A friend recently used an old vacuformed cordless drill box to make a ridgid carry case for his bike. He used a dremel tool to cut out the inner skin of the box, the plastic tool cases are nice and showerproof and already have locking clasps in place.

[Ironspark]

How strong is it?

[yoyology]

I haven't been able to give it a proper test. It hasn't fallen off the bike yet, but I haven't put anything on it, either. :-)

[undecided795]

It looks good, but you might want to move the reflector to the back of the rack so it'll be more visible.

[yoyology]

I'm planning to.  Just haven't gotten to it yet.  Still waiting on the scratch to replace that blasted tire.