Bike Storage

Primary goal for the build was to easily carry both bikes in the garage area (no 'yard sale' bike rack hanging on the back blocking the brake lights, no wrestling with covers, no weather exposure, less risk of theft, quicker to deploy & stow).

I'm using the Unaka low profile fork mounts - solid, cheaper, and low gives more flexibility than the Rocky ones that are pretty tall. And I don’t want any lock on them - they are inside the van already. Wish I would have got orange.

Last summer with a cardboard template of the inner tray size, I spent most of a day on the origami puzzle of how to 'nest' the two bikes as tight as possible to fit on a single tray. Enough confidence to pull the trigger on 2 trays and move forward and hope it works out.

Was about to figure out where they should go and just drill though the FVCO pull out tray to add the unaka mounts and then paused. Seemed short sighted. I'll inevitably need to move them a bit and when we replace a bike someday, I don't want the tray to look like swiss cheese. Or what if a friend comes and has a different bike geometry?

The 8020 build experience offered a great solution. Used half size 1050 extrusion in 2 dimensions. In seconds I can:

• move mount forward and back
• move mount side to side
• raise/lower mount just by stacking small 4" sections of 10 series
• remove the top cross pieces entirely
  (maybe a trip doesn't need bikes and I don't want the fork mounts as obstacles to using the entire tray for tubs)

All came together today.

The 1050 didn't raise the mount that much so not sacrificing much height for all this flexibility. I saw a few vans with a single horizontal L track chunk for this, but the 1050 is much more flexible - infinite adjustability. The bottom most 'side rails' of 1050 are reverse bolted - the BHCS comes up through the tray and into a t-nut in the channel. Had to do this way because of bolt interference with the ones that through bolt the entire tray to the van floor.

Thrilled to finally see confirmation that the design all worked out (and before the snow flies). The second FVCO pull out tray will drop in right after I'm done with the ceiling. No pedal interference with the second tray which I'm really happy with. Our stacking plastic tubs for the 2nd tray will work great.

Plenty of room at the front of the bikes also for hanging helmets, storing bike shoes, and gear on the VanEssential rear door storage things.

For those into bikes left one is a 56 cm Trek Checkpoint, right one is Small Trek FX 5. No e-bikes for us (yet) - we need the exercise and enjoy a few challenges. Added OneUp dropper posts last summer for more flexibility. Could just barely squeak in without them, but way nicer with them. Can't recommend OneUp v3 dropper posts enough - they go down to the hard-to-find 27.2mm diameter seat posts that we needed. And they're a great Canadian company.