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Unnecessarily aggravating bicycle adventure
So, having gotten my wheel trued and acquired a basket for my bike, I was ready to acquire groceries! Right?
Except.
As one of the corollaries to Murphy's Law states, "Compatible with most X" means "But not the one that you have," and "Compatible with most bike racks" means "But not yours." I didn't want to bother returning the basket and getting a more expensive pannier, and I didn't want to bother with getting a new rack, so I looked online and found someone with the same problem who said, "I just attach it with zip ties and it works fine."
"That can't possibly be stable enough, can it?" I thought, but it was the cheapest of my possible solutions, so I got some zip ties and attached the basket tightly and sure enough it felt pretty stable.
It did not occur to me to test it out with some weight.
So I went down to the co-op and I got my groceries and I put them in the basket and as I was crossing to the right side of the street I heard a snap.
I just had time to register that my basket was falling off, but not to do anything about it -- not when I was in the middle of the street and the light was starting to turn. And as I reached the other sidewalk, the basket fell down and my bags of groceries (which I'd luckily taken the precaution of knotting at the top) fell out into the street.
So I ended up walking my bike all the way home, holding on to the basket with one hand and the handlebars with the other.
It is not optimal.
Except.
As one of the corollaries to Murphy's Law states, "Compatible with most X" means "But not the one that you have," and "Compatible with most bike racks" means "But not yours." I didn't want to bother returning the basket and getting a more expensive pannier, and I didn't want to bother with getting a new rack, so I looked online and found someone with the same problem who said, "I just attach it with zip ties and it works fine."
"That can't possibly be stable enough, can it?" I thought, but it was the cheapest of my possible solutions, so I got some zip ties and attached the basket tightly and sure enough it felt pretty stable.
It did not occur to me to test it out with some weight.
So I went down to the co-op and I got my groceries and I put them in the basket and as I was crossing to the right side of the street I heard a snap.
I just had time to register that my basket was falling off, but not to do anything about it -- not when I was in the middle of the street and the light was starting to turn. And as I reached the other sidewalk, the basket fell down and my bags of groceries (which I'd luckily taken the precaution of knotting at the top) fell out into the street.
So I ended up walking my bike all the way home, holding on to the basket with one hand and the handlebars with the other.
It is not optimal.
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The basket on my bike is attached to the rack with spring-loaded grabbers. Presumably there's a better, clearer way to express what I mean, but it's not coming to me. Anyway, suffice it to say it's not screwed on in any way. Worked just fine most of the year, until one day I was trying to transport something especially heavy and unbalanced (I forget what), and the whole thing just snapped right off. ... Fortunately, my stuff was alright, and the basket went back onto the bike, no problem.
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