Matt's Desk

Spare Wheel Mountain Bike Mount

Is any car more practical than a Honda Civic? A recurring theme of this website seems to be exploring how versatile the car is, and another string to its bow is being able to fit a mountain bike in mostly assembled shape.

Simply laying the bike on its side on the rear seats proved an excellent way to get dirt and oil everywhere.

This simple device is essentially a hollow aluminium tube, bored to take the bike’s quick release skewer with bosses on either side for the fork to mount on.

Benefits of the mount on the spare wheel included:

• Allowing the bike to be mounted vertically, and therefore wheeled out of the car rather than awkwardly lifted
• Not requiring the bike’s rear wheel to be removed
• Reducing the contact between a dirty/ oily bike and car seats
• Preventing abrasion of bike components/ paint against the interior

The laws of the universe dictate that if the mount was difficult to remove from the spare wheel, a flat tyre on the motorway would be imminent. Wing nuts were therefore used to allow quick removal from the spare wheel if required.