Carrying a Sur Ron with a Prius hitch rack.

I have long carried my fat (and heavy, 60 pounds) e bike on my home made 1 1/4" receiver rack, with good results (having not lost the bike or messed up the car), but I bought a Sur Ron electric dirt bike a couple weeks ago, and it weighs 110 pounds. My existing rack COULD be modified, but I quickly realized that to do so would be a compromise, and also ruin it for carrying the fattie, so a clean slate approach was needed.

I first pondered over making a super light weight aluminum trailer, but quickly dissed that idea, then I got on line and checked out all the commercially available bike and motorcycle racks, and than I just built my own that for better or worse is somewhat unique. I am not cheap, but I am frugal (?) and I really get a kick out of projects like these, using what I already have on hand. Fulfilling design expectations without: 1. killing the day by running into town to gather materials 2. spending money, can be a challenge but also adds to the satisfaction of a job well done.

I am not an expert metal worker or welder, more of a farmer type, but this didn't require any particular skill, just a MIG welder, grinder, cut off tool, and other odds and end found in most home or ranch shops. I won't go into the mental trail I followed as I "designed and engineered" it, while simultaneously running back and forth to my outbuilding where I keep my stash of misc. scrap steel, but I am super happy with how it turned out. Total out of pocket cost was 49 cents, for the little plastic square cap to close out one of the steel tubes, everything else just fell into place. Total time, over two days, was about 6 hrs, including, mostly, pondering where/how to start.

One key factor I stumbled upon, was the use of the turnbuckles (left over from a fencing project, soon to be replaced with a bit longer and higher quality ones), tied into the already there chain loops on my receiver hitch, they effectively take all the slop out of the receiver tube when tightened, (once I figured out their best attach angle) and only add about a minute's time when putting the rack on or off. The rack itself inserts easily, that's why the slop is there, but unless I am carrying the SR, the rack is coming off as it still adds some weight and drag, so making it hassle free to deal with was important.

My existing 400 watt sine wave inverter will be sufficient to put about a 4 amp charge into the 60 VDC SR battery while driving, or parked, as long as the Prius is ON of course. Being able to charge enroute is a great feature of the ebike/car combo.

 

For any metal work I do, I am a big fan of Rustoleum's "rusty metal primer", the red stuff you see. Two coats, brush applied, and I'm done!

Like my fat bike rack, the lights are visible enough....not obscured enough to bother with a light bar, unless I drive a lot at night anyway, which I don't as the bike rides are day time events. The only time I've driven at night extensively with a bike onboard, has been with my folding Montague, which I fit inside the car. I do have a few reflector strips I could stick on, keeping with the "designing around what I have" theme! Here's a pic of the fattie, most of these drives with it being less then 30 miles, daytime.

I continue to love the dichotomy of the slick looking white Prius, combined with a muddy and funky looking bike on the nice person end. And of course, when I arrive at a trailhead, seeing pickups and SUV's being used as the bike transport of choice, I win the best MPG to get there award by a very large margin. The charging the bike in transit thing is the icing on the cake. The plug in Prius remains my favorite car ever owned, and I'm 72. With the projected spike in gas costs, we Prius drivers will be sitting pretty, relative to the people using quad cab pickups for daily driving anyway.