Carrying a Laptop Bag on a Folding Bike

One challenge of commuting by bike is transporting delicate cargo.  A laptop or tablet is pretty standard fare these days and electronic devices and vibration are not the best of friends.  Reader Eamonn, he of hose-clip front suspension lock out fame, sent along his hack for fighting vibration on his commute.  All tex and pictures are credited to Eamonn

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I needed a better way to carry my laptop on my folding bike.  I used a backpack for a long time which works fine except on hot days (sweaty-back syndrome !).  I tried a handlebar mount (the excellent but expensive Klickfix system) which also works well but it adversely affects the stability of a bike which is already a little on the twitchy side.  The bike has a carrier but it is so low down that my heel clips anything that overhangs its perimeter.  There had to be a better way.

My simple solution is to make an attachment for the carrier which will allow the laptop case to be mounted vertically without moving around. The band around the laptop back is a strip of 40mm x 2mm aluminium which is attached to carrier.

I worry a little about the laptop having the guts shaken out of it (its a very nice laptop !) so I use a folded-up and partially inflated tube to give it a little “suspension."

This trades off a little stability for (hopefully) giving the laptop a more cosseted ride.

It works so well I did (almost) the same thing for the folding bike’s big brother…

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I hope someone finds this useful.  If you have thought of a better way to solve the same problem I’d love to hear from you.

Comments

[Leo Horishny]

I like the utility of using the spare tube we carry around usually. Slick.