Fixing What Ya Broke: Part 2

Iowa license plate recycling project- Or in other words, fixing my bicycle part with what's at hand.

The repair of my BarYak "wings" is complete now and I thought I'd show you all what I did here. You may remember my post from a couple days ago where I give you the story on the back ground and inspiration for this repair using some old Iowa license plate I had lying around here.

So, if you reference the image here, you might be able to follow along with this. First off, the carbon fiber material you see here is simply ornamental. It serves little, if any, structural purpose for the design. The "wings", arm rests really, attach to the BarYak extensions via two bolts which pass through at the corners of the "wing" piece of the arm rest. This is what tore through when I crashed last October. The backing material here is a dense foam material which doesn't hold up well to the shearing type forces I applied to it when I endoed.

My theory for the repair was to place some sort of an "end cap" over the edges of the "wing" part and drill two holes into the cap to accommodate the bolts. The end cap would be metal, harder to tear through, and be tougher and especially be able to provide a better clamping surface. However; as I contemplated the design, I realized that the foam material the "wing" was mostly made of would want to compress much easier than the metal end cap. So, I formed a 2/3rds cap. essentially what you see here, and the separate "back plate" would allow for compression of the foam bit.

I have not field tested this yet, but I expect it to perform as I expect and the reinforced bolt holes should give my Bar Yak System new life. Stay tuned for an update later into Spring after this has been tested.