A recent bike-packing trip lent incredible opportunities to practice my design skills with very few resources.

In the middle of nowhere Michigan, day one of a five day, 200+ mile trip, I had two lose screws on my knock-off rear rack.

In favor of carrying as little weight possible, I left my wrench at home. Here’s how I solved the problem:

Iterations on a whim…

01. Dental Floss

10 miles away from any kind of store, I needed a quick fix - luckily my friend remembered to bring dental floss. I used this to tie the holds together and get through the day.

Problem: this wouldn’t hold for the next 150 miles of riding and any snap mid-ride could be dangerous.

Once we got to the next town, I tried to find zip ties to no avail. However, I did find some paper clips. I channeled my wire sculpting skills to reinforce the places with dental floss.

Problem: there was excess movement on the rear rack, which left me worried about damage to the bike frame.

Okay so the paper clips didn’t entirely do the trick… I went back into the store to get some jumbo rubber bands. Not only did these provide structure and reinforcement, they also kept the rack from damaging the frame. I was able to reduce extra movement to pre-lose screw levels and successfully finish the trip.