{"id":415,"date":"2010-12-03T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T23:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgc.co\/2010\/12\/review-of-carver-surf-board-rack-for-bikes\/"},"modified":"2010-12-03T23:02:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T23:02:00","slug":"review-of-carver-surf-board-rack-for-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/singlespeedgoldcoast.com\/2010\/12\/03\/review-of-carver-surf-board-rack-for-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Carver Surf Board Rack for Bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Mojo fixie bike has been doing duties to the beach and back lately and my old back was feeling the effects of lugging bodyboard, flippers, wax (and styling gel?) etc with the poorly designed bodyboard bag. I should consult Shappelle<\/a> on what bag she prefers, because obviously some bags are better at hauling 4.2kg of of cannabis than others.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking Shappelle, what I did was buy a Carver Surfboard Rack<\/a>. These fellas attached to your bike with little outrigger wings to cradle your board. A hefty chunk of metal attaches to your seat post via a clamp and the two outriggers slot into that hefty chunk of metal and nip tight with a couple of allen key bolts. My local bike store knocked me $165, which I considered a reasonable amount to pay for a quality piece of kit. I was damn sure I only wanted to pay for this item  once so I was keen to get the best on the market. Several people and a great deal of internet trawling had assured me that this rack was the way to go. (There’s some waffle following so if you really want to find out how they ride skip to The Ride below.)<\/p>\n

Fitting the Carver Surfboard Rack is pretty easy. The nice man at the store offered to help me should I run into any trouble but really I’d rather sell my tools and buy one of those silly-looking recumbents<\/a> before admitting I had trouble with a task as simple as fitting a Carver Surfboard Rack. Carver provide a little allen key for you to get the job done and in theory it would be tool enough for the job but if you don’t already own a decent 5mm allen key then there’s something wrong. It’s the single most common allen key size for bike stuff. To me bike riding and bike maintenance go hand in hand. I’ve never quite trusted a cyclist who cant do basic maintenance. They’re not real cyclists, just as every cyclist loves coffee, beer and pastries (though not necessarily at the same time), every cyclist should at the very least have a decent set of allen keys, about fifty tyre levers<\/a> and five puncture kits (because you accumulate this stuff right?)<\/p>\n

The wings stick out a fair bit so Carver have given you the ability to swing the things around lateral to the bike and click them back into place. This eliminates about 15cms of protrusion from the bike. It takes about 10 seconds per wing to swing them round so it’s a no brainer. Alternately you can leave them out and hang Christmas decorations off them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Wings at full extension. Fly my pretty.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

What I preferred to do was remove the wings altogether. The Carver Surfboard Racks aren’t really designed with this practice in mind but it only takes about 3-5 mins (with a decent allen key!). Two cinch bolts per wing hold them in place and they’re reasonably easy to get to. I have half a mind to charge my battery drill and leave it in the shed with a 5mm allen key bolt in it. I used to do this for the Lefty fork on my Cannondale<\/a> (before I got a decent car rack and no longer needed to remove the front wheel). This might shave 10 seconds off my pit-stop. In terms of a 30 minute ride to The Spit, an hour or so in the surf and another ride home, the 3-5 mins involved with removing the wings seems trivial.<\/p>\n

When the outriggers are removed the big chunk of metal that is left clamped to your bike doesn’t deter too much from the svelte good looks of your fixie but it does prevent the fitting of other things like clamp on racks<\/a> or spray dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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the chunk of metal, not too obtrusive by itself<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Once in place there’s little that can be stolen from bike without unbolting it. This is enough to deter casual thieves. This is all I ask. If some shithead really wants to steal my stuff he’ll find a way. The wings of the outriggers can be removed without tools but I fail to see what anyone would do with them alone. For me the risk is worth the pleasure of not having a board on my back when I ride to the beach.<\/p>\n

Fitting the board onto the rack couldn’t be easier. It slots in and two bungy cords hold it into position.<\/p>\n

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Warning! Warning!<\/b>

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For some reason Carver saw fit to put a warning on the box to the effect of:<\/p>\n