americanfietser
Member
- Dec 29, 2024
- 29
- 74
We don't have kids and the only reason I occasionally use the passenger seat is for my wife to ride in the Urban Arrow when we go places together on one bike.
Often times, I find the seat to be obstructive when really loading up the box with cargo. I mean, I won't say its a real problem, but there have been enough times that I thought to myself that it would be nice if it were out of the way to make fitting in another bag of groceries or a box much easier. There are only 4 easy to reach bolts that hold the seat in and you can take them out in under a minute with a nice ratchet.
Once I remove the seat, the floor reveals two large holes that objects can fall through.
Now, someone looking to save effort and money could easily devise a plan to plug these openings, but I have never had the ability to go the easy route. I always want something fine crafted, looks good, and fits perfectly. So, I employed the help of my very smart, very accomplished PhD wife to engineer a plate that would utilize two of the existing bolt holes and fit into place like a part that was purpose built for the bike.
She took measurements and went to AutoCAD to design the plate.
This is the result of her work. We then found a service online that allows you to submit CAD files and they will custom fabricate whatever it is that you need out of nearly any type of material. The website SendCutSend is what we used as this was suggested to me by a very helpful person on Bluesky.
The SendCutSend website is super easy to use. We uploaded the CAD file and it instantly transformed it into a visual we could look over in 2D and 3D.
We verified that everything was good and that the measurement units matched, which of course we set to metric. (Imperial units are ridiculous) I was able to choose the material and settled on T6 Aluminum and instead of powder coating, I went with a black anodization. In the end, this entire piece cost me about $75, which I realize again is overkill, but I wanted it as perfect as I could possibly get it.
The tracking process for the order is pretty neat and detailed on the website. It's currently in production and I'll follow up when the piece arrives and HOPEFULLY our measurements were correct and this installs easily.
Often times, I find the seat to be obstructive when really loading up the box with cargo. I mean, I won't say its a real problem, but there have been enough times that I thought to myself that it would be nice if it were out of the way to make fitting in another bag of groceries or a box much easier. There are only 4 easy to reach bolts that hold the seat in and you can take them out in under a minute with a nice ratchet.
Once I remove the seat, the floor reveals two large holes that objects can fall through.
Now, someone looking to save effort and money could easily devise a plan to plug these openings, but I have never had the ability to go the easy route. I always want something fine crafted, looks good, and fits perfectly. So, I employed the help of my very smart, very accomplished PhD wife to engineer a plate that would utilize two of the existing bolt holes and fit into place like a part that was purpose built for the bike.
She took measurements and went to AutoCAD to design the plate.
This is the result of her work. We then found a service online that allows you to submit CAD files and they will custom fabricate whatever it is that you need out of nearly any type of material. The website SendCutSend is what we used as this was suggested to me by a very helpful person on Bluesky.
The SendCutSend website is super easy to use. We uploaded the CAD file and it instantly transformed it into a visual we could look over in 2D and 3D.
We verified that everything was good and that the measurement units matched, which of course we set to metric. (Imperial units are ridiculous) I was able to choose the material and settled on T6 Aluminum and instead of powder coating, I went with a black anodization. In the end, this entire piece cost me about $75, which I realize again is overkill, but I wanted it as perfect as I could possibly get it.
The tracking process for the order is pretty neat and detailed on the website. It's currently in production and I'll follow up when the piece arrives and HOPEFULLY our measurements were correct and this installs easily.
