I put this inquiry in the latest BTA Digest:
Can someone develop an accessory transporting dry cleaning by bike? Maybe some kind of a rack that attaches to my bike that allows me to hang my dry cleaning without having it, or the plastic around it, get caught in my wheels.
If you’ve got ideas or good practices or want to just weld one together on a whim, let me know.
This from Patrick:
Wear a sturdy jacket, or backpack that is not very full. Ask the dry cleaner person to help you. Have them hang your dry cleaning from the back of your jacket collar, or from the top loop of your backpack.
This is how a dry cleaner attached my clothing to me once when he saw me outside fussing with my bike.
Wouldn’t work with full length dresses, or 20 mile commutes, or heavy rain or winds.
I love the idea of a 10-ft-tall flagpole rack with dresses flappin’ in the breeze. Or maybe a trailer. Isn’t it funny what ends up being the hardest things to carry? I have to use a trailer to carry a pot of soup, even though the object itself isn’t that big or heavy.
And from Seth:
You can always ask your cleaner to fold your clothes instead of hanging them. That way you don’t need all the plastic and you don’t wind up with those cheap hangers either!
Perhaps something along these lines could be helpful….
http://www.instructables.com/id/Bicycle-Porfolio-Carrier/
Don’t wear clothes that have to be dry cleaned.
Really. Dry cleaning fluid is metal degreaser and it’s some of the most toxic chemicals around (PERC) — it poisons water, causes cancer, is highly volatile and lingers in your clothes (and house). If you’re green enough to haul laundered clothes on a bike, you should look into what the dry cleaners are doing to you (and the world). See the book, “Our Stolen Future” for more on the evils of PERC and the even greater evils of the chemical industry that has lobbied to keep PERC on the market, poisoning the planet, because it’s easy to use and requires no skill.
I have folding baskets on my 3 speed, and when I need to bring laundered clothes home I hook the hanger on the bottom of one basket (folded) and bring everything across the rear rack into the other basket (open). It’s not perfect, but I only have 2 miles to ride. I use a couple of bungies to hold it all down.
John,
What about dry cleaners who don’t use PERC? Those are the ones I go to, but how bad is the stuff they use instead?
Michelle
And, here’s a suggestion from Karen:
“I had to send you my solution to your drycleaning woes: reinstitute home delivery, by bicycle, of course, of cleaning. The bike trailer has a clothes pole front to back on a alloy frame covered with coated nylon with a snag-free nylon zipper for access.
I’m old enough to remember home delivery of milk in perpetually recycled glass bottles. There were many ‘old’ solutions that are an improvement on our current standard of everyone making individual trips to buy and carry goods back to their locked and alarmed residences. There was no one home at my house during the day – we left the door unlocked and the milkman came in and put the milk in the refrigerator. There are some things about the way we lived in the 50′s and 60′s that I miss.”
There are garmet bags that mount to a rear rack. I own one and I don’t it for transporting dry cleaning, but for clothes that I wish to remain wrinkle free.
Sorry for the typo – there was a whistle in my mouth.