Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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TITLE OF THE INVENTION:
eBICYCLE RACK
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:
Field of the invention:
The present invention relates to a rack for
holding a bicycle in an upstanding position and in particular to
a rack suitably structured to support the majority of bicycles
having various sizes and widths of wheels. The universality of
the rack depends on its particular structure combined with
dimensions proportionaly adjusted. It has no movable parts.
The bicycles are easy to install on the present
rack and maintain their upright position regardless of the
dimensions of the bicycle wheels which are commercially
available.
Prior art:
U.S. patent No. 3,202,289 issued on August 24,
1965 discloses a stand for bicycles which makes use of laterally
adjustable bars for clamping a wheel of a bicycle so as to hold
the latter in an upright position. The stand needs to make use
of various types of coupling which allows the adjustment of the
bars and of a Z-shape base member.
The bicycle storage device disclosed in Canadian
patent No. 1,168,187 issued on May 29, 1984, combines a wheel
receiving channel 10 with a hook 11 and a bracket 12 for gripping
the lowermost part of the wheels of a bicycle. The channel has a
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flat base portion lOa which prevents, even the narrowest wheel
from sliding below the channel. The hook grips the rim of the
wheel adjacent the channel and does not take in consideration the
spokes of the wheel.
Canadian patent No. 1,222,722 issued to P.T. Drake
on June 9, 1987 describes a kit for assembling a bicycle rack.
The loops 19 lateratly holding the wheels. The lower and the
upper part of the loops are at the same distance from each other.
Accordingly, the lower part cannot be adjustly fit for all sizes
of wheels and accordingly the b;cycle will tilt sideways. The
lower part of the loop is supported by the tubes 13 and 15 and is
close to the ground. The wheel of the bicycle is generally
susceptible of touching the ground. Furthermore, the distance
between the tubes 13 and 15 is relatively small and does not
allow the wheel to penetrate much below the level of those tubes.
Partly for this reason, Drake includes a third tube 17, to
prevent the forward movement of the bicycle.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION:
The rack according to the present invention is
adapted to support, in an upstanding position, a variety of
bicycles having wheels of different widths and diameters. The
rack includes a bottomless funnel-shape channel having a pair of
spaced parallel walls and a pair of tapered walls. The channel
is supported at both ends by a longitudinal beam for raising the
channel above the ground. A pair of guiding rails are mounted
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above the channel and fixed parallel to the tapered walls. The
guiding rails have a generally trapezoidal shape. The parallel
walls laterally supports the bicycle having narrow along their
lower segment and vertically support the wheel at both ends of
the segment. The bicycle with wider wheels are vertically
supported by the tapered walls which slightly squeezes the
elastic tires of the wheels. These latter bicycles are held in an
upstanding position position by the guiding rails which are close
to the spokes and allows a nearly nil tilt of the bicycle.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS:
Figure 1 is a perspective view of the bicycle rack
according to one embodiment of the invention,
Figure 2 is a side view of the rack supporting a
bicycle wheel,
Figure 3 is a front view of the rack supporting
three bicycles,
Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along
line 4-4 of figure 2, and
Figures 4a and 4b are two views of the rack
similar to figure 4 and supporting two different bicycle wheels.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE P~EFERRED EMBODIMENT:
Referring to figure 1, there is shown a bicycle
rack 10 embodying the invention. The rack 10 has a pair of
longitudinal beams 12 adapted to support a set of bottomless
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channels 14. A pair of guiding rails 16 project upwardly on each
side of each channel 14. As illustrated in figures 4a and 4b,
the guiding rails 16 are adapted to abuttingly support the spokes
36 of a bicycle wheel 30. A pair of transversal beams 18 are
secured adjacent to each end of each longitudinal beam 12. The
transversal beams 18 are adapted to rest on the ground 20 thus
maintaining the longitudinal beams 12 distant from the ground 20.
As illustrated in figures 4, 4a and 4b, the
channel 14 is funnel-shaped having tapered walls 22 extending
integrally into a pair of parallel walls 24. The width of the
lower edge 28 of the tapered walls 22 is approximately one inch.
The lower segment of a wheel 30 having a width equal or inferior
to about one inch can thus fittingly slide through the lower edge
28 as illustrated in figure 4. The parallel walls 24 are adapted
to laterally abut the lower segment of the wheel 30 when the
latter extends through the lower edge 28. The projection of the
wheel 30 between the parallel walls 24 allows the periphery of
the wheel to be abuttingly supported by the longitudinal beams
12.
As illustrated in figures 4a and 4b, for wider
wheels 30a and 30b, the tapered nature of the walls 22 allows
them to abuttingly support the lower segment 40 of wheels having
various widths greater than one inch. The guiding rails 16 have
a generally upsidedown truncated V-shape or trapezoidal shape
with transversal bars 32 substantially parallel to the channel
14 and tilted bars 34 connected at each extremity to the
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longitudinal beams 12. The vertical distance between the
transversal bars 32 and the lower edge 28 of the tapered walls 22
is approximately 7 1/2 inches in order to properly support most
conventional wheels. The transversal bars 32 lie close to the
spokes 36 adjacent the hub 38 of the wheel 30. The transversal
bar 32 has a length of about 12 inches.
Contrary to the racks described in the previously
cited prior art, the rack 10 embodying the present invention is
thus particularly adapted to solidly support wheels of various
widths and diameters. This feature is particularly useful since
an increasingly large number of specislized bicycle types such as
mountain bikes, hybrid bikes, racing bikes, town bikes, etc.
having different types of wheels and frames are finding their way
in the market place.
When heavier bicycles such as town bikes or hybrid
bikes having larger wheels are used, the rack, as illustrated in
figures 4a and 4b, provides a structure allowing two different
sections of the wheel to be abuttingly supported. This is a
major improvement over the structure provided in Canadian patent
No. 1,168,187 which could hardly be used with a relatively heavy
bicycle.
The lighter bicycles, such as racing bikes, which
generally have wheels with a width equal or slightly inferior to
one inch are supported differently by the novel rack than the
bicycles having wider and smaller wheels but both securily
remains in an upstanding position.
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In the embodiment shown in figure 2, an important
segment 40 of the wheel 30 is relatively squeezed between the
parallel walls 24 for a lateral support while the beams 12
provide the vertical support. The spokes 36 are spaced from the
transversal bars 32 by a distance of about 1/8 inch on each side
which allows the bicycle a maximum tilt of less than 1 degree.
The bicycle is accordingly maintained substantially straight
without any substantial lateral pressure on the spokes when
tilted. In the embodiments shown in figures 3, 4a and 4b, the
wheels 34a and 34b penetrates more or lefis deeply between the
tapered walls for a vertical support of the bicycle while the
transversal bars 32a and 32b lie close to the spokes 36a and 36b
within a short distance of the hubs 38a and 38b where the
spokes have substantially their widest spread. The maximum
distance between the spokes and the transversal bars 32a and 32b
is less than 1/4 inch and accordingly can maintain the bicycle in
a substantially vertical position.
The bicycle rack according to the invention makes
use of the characteristic of the commercially available bicycles
wherein all the hubs have the same width and the spokes 36, 36a
and 36b can be adjacent the respective transversal bars 32, 32a
and 32b. The proximity of the latter bars and the spokes is
maintained by the degreee of penetration of the wheels in the
channels.
The support offered by the rack 10 is different
from the one offered by the structure described in Canadian
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Patent No. 1,168,187. Indeed since the channels 14 are
bottomless, contrary to the channels referred to by numeral 10 in
Canadian patent No. 1,168,187 which have a flat base lOa, the
tires can be inserted through the openings and can thus be
gripped about the lower segment 40 of the wheel 30 over a
relatively large area by the walls 24.
