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Car battery on front rack.
800mm handlebar in a box, initially widthwise on front rack, then lengthwise protruding forwards.
Complete car roof rack and bike carrier, in a rucksack sticking up.
Yours?
This thread has been done but it was 13 years ago so why not again.
Me mostly, but as a youngster on my Raleigh Winner, full fishing kit. Rod bag, seat box, landing net and keep net. I went off fishing fairly quickly thankfully.
We were in Pila years ago and my mates Mrs found a jumble sale halfway up the mountain. She bought a huge rug and my mate had to ride back down with it on his shoulder
6' florescent tubes taped to the top tube.
Car battery on the rear rack, once up to speed, ok, but that much weight high up made for a very wobbly start. 😮
Probably myself tbf
I’m a fan of #carryshitolympics
Personally.
Either an arc welder on a original spec raleight twenty (steel rims by, 20inch tyres incapable of holding about 15psi) through the centre of Glasgow from west to east, that includes a trip down west regent street. Terrifying.
Or more than once a full bike strapped to a courier bag.
The best thing I witnessed though was a woman getting on her bike and pedaling off with some 2.4m 1x2s strapped length ways to the bike. She didn't get far owing to the fact she had included strapping them to the handlebars aswell as the frame...
An oar. All 12 feet plus of it. I suppose strictly speaking it wasn’t on the bike, it was in my hand, but I was on the bike.
I had a boat on the top of my Nissan micro once too. That was a bit of an overhanging load going through central London.
Google tells me that a racing pair is 9 or 10m long.
When I moved in with my girlfriend, now wife, I transported all my worldly goods in one trip on my bike. This included all of my clothing and a twin deck Technics hifi system with record deck plus all of my tapes.
The only tricky moment was when the three pin plug got caught in the front spokes so I had to stop suddenly. With the 100L Bergen rucksack on my back, a smaller rucksack on backwards to it covered my chest and most of my vision and the stereo resting on the bars it was a bit tricky to get going again as I was now facing uphill.
I've had a white water kayak inside my wife's smart car, if that counts ?
(Weekend boating in North Wales, inc camp gear, paddles and paddling gear too, when she needed the real car).
One of my favourite games. A couple of memorable/recent ones...
A wheelset in one of the boxes Superstar pack theirs in, which are bloody massive - pic makes it look smaller somehow
Some other bike parts for the local recycling project:
A post hole digger:
Countless other things. 3m lengths of conduit/pipe strapped to the top tube are fun.
A 100w Marshall amp head strapped to the top tube and across the handle bars. Couldn’t ride it but managed to push it 3 miles.
I took my mates bike home when he mashed himself up & got a lift to hospital. that was more rolled alongside me that carried though.
I've carried a ladder on my shoulder, made looking behind interesting.
My fat friend. That was tough.
I moved an ‘80s style music centre (record player, duel cassette, radio) on the rack with the speakers in panniers. Surprisingly worked at the other end.
On a moped I’ve transported multiple huge boxes of SCUBA gear, but that was in Thailand. Every time I saw the police I worried, but they never even looked.
Two other bikes. One each side of my handlebars, dangling from the saddle or seat/top tube junction from the grip/brake interface on my bike
Admittedly they were kids bikes, but still...
Biggest I was able to do with (some) confidence was a 20" Islabike Beinn and a Frog 16" on the other side. Had one go with a 24" and ended up riding that to school holding on to a second bike alongside. That was hairy!
203cm slalom skis strapped to the top tube. Boots and poles on my back
Petrol power hedge trimmers.
I have a long tail electric cargo bike and love the challenge of ridiculous cargo!
Initial things that come to mind - (up to 3) People, pallets, tables, chairs, big gazebo, boxes, supermarket shopping, postcrete, other bikes, massive tree stump I could barely lift (that was one was sketchy)
Filing cabinet and large office plant in a Burley across Sheffield.
When I used to work in London years ago, I cycled to decathlon from my office in the city on my Brompton. I bought one of those massive 4 person pop up tents that folded down to a huge green disc with rucksack straps, I also had a green helmet. On the way back I must have heard Cowabunga! a dozen times....
Also on the same Brompton I cycled up to North London, bought a 90 litre wave board (windsurf) and cycled it back to my office (then took it on the train home in rush hour which was way harder)
Also a fan of the carry shit home challenge. Heaviest was a massive vice that I found in a skip, most unwieldy a 7 x 2 ft painting across Edinburgh, in a storm, totally off ma heed.
Regular sized bike - one bottle of calor gas(15kg) Once you get it balanced its ok. Needed to get a refill and the only way rather than walk there, was to find some way of using the bike rack. Tied a board on, and then tied the bottle to that.
Assorted 6' lengths of timber. Just be careful turning as the bits sticking out the front impede the cables.
Found a snowboard once, had to try to carry that with one arm, and steer with the other. Wind kept catching it which made a dangerous journey on a busy road.
.
Largest unwieldy item I had the carry(by hand) through central Glasgow to the train station, then from the station to home, was a Record Power BS2150 bandsaw.
Four live chickens in a box. Surprisingly ok balanced on the bars.
A piece of 2x2 about twice as long as the bike bungeed to the rack and top tube. Unlike Joshv's one not to the bars! That was fine as long as I didn't have to turn right
Most awkward for some reason was a sheet of wire mesh about 3ft square, lots of sharp edges, nothing to really hold on to and quite unwieldy
5 man inflatable family tent, pump, the rest of the gear for a night's camping and one child?
I guess none of the posters on this thread have been to Vietnam. The entire family plus a fridge freezer seems to be the minimum requirement for riding a bike over there.
@mattoutandabout I think you need to show everyone how boats and small cars is supposed to look.
@thenorthwind please post more pics of your bike, stop teasing me with just the bars and rack!
Petrol power hedge trimmers.
90 degrees away from solving the close pass problem.....
but as a youngster on my Raleigh Winner, full fishing kit. Rod bag, seat box, landing net and keep net.
I used to carry my fishing gear on my Raleigh Chopper, small creel hanging off the back of the seat , rods tied along the frame and landing/keep net in my paper round bag .
I’ve had a white water kayak inside my wife’s smart car, if that counts ?
Amatuer.
A defunct Ebac dehumidifer over Long Hill to the recycling centre in Buxton on an e-cargo (thankfully) bike.
On a motorbike rather than a pushbike, Dame Edna Everidge's wig through the west end of London to somewhere in Covent Garden a long, long time ago.
Four trays of eggs. No rack, so rode one handed, around a lake, thinking this could go horribly wrong.
Ferret in a ferret box strapped to rear rack, spade tied along the top tube and a load of dead rabbits hanging on the handlebars. All got moved onto the moped when I got to 16. Long time ago. Does anyone go ferreting any more?
27m of copper pipe
In one length TJ?
9 x 3m lengths tied along the crossbar. It had some interesting resonance 🙂
Got stopped by a copper and told to get off and push once with a 3m long piece of timber along the top tube.
Of course when I got round the corner I just remounted and continued my journey.
The biggest/heaviest was probably all the shopping for a venture scout weekend camp on a post office bike with piss poor rod brakes. Boxes front and back, panniers and a big rucksack.
I once cycled to the local sailing club with 2 full length kayak paddles. One strapped to either side of my rucsac.
A mouse in a hiking sock
I'm another who's used the bike to get access to hills for spring ski touring; sometimes skis, with boots attached, A-frame strapped to a rucksack. That's not especially tricky but looks funny as the skis will try to repeatedly whack the back of your head. It's a lot easier to just take everything in the trailer, which I sometimes use to collect a week's food shopping.
One that was quite fun though was riding through Perth town centre with a large, hefty new wood splitter in one hand, bright yellow shaft. Strangely, I had no close passes at all on that ride but had a very funny look from a copper on a street corner. Cannae think why..
A 25kg sack of potatoes, draped over the rear rack. Bike handling was... interesting.
Or perhaps a 2.4m stick of wood from B&Q. It was quite light but I had to carry it under one arm like a lance all the way home!
Sheet of 8x4 MDF on a Brompton…
2.5m long by approx 300mm diameter cardboard tube containing telescopic pole saw bungeed into the top tube. Length wasn't too bad but tight corners needed a bit of planning. Harder part was the bandy legged pedalling.
Nearly as bad was stuffing two Ortleib panniers with apples from an abandoned orchard then trying to keep the front wheel on the ground.
Toss up between a big suitcase under my arms that only just went over the top to the bars; or my mate and his bike for the last few miles of a Polaris Challenge.
A guitarist complete with guitar in flight case. Fat bugger bent the rack
We are in a prime position for this with our Tern GSD cargo bike, but haven’t taken any photos of it with some of the loads. It would have been a Christmas tree, but we didn’t bother this year. But we do pick each other up from the train now and then. Pic is from when we demo’d it. It’s bloody brilliant!
We found a golf trolley on one of our pub rides which was towed home. Made a bit of a noise given it was about midnight when we got back to our village.
This is not ridiculous by any stretch but it turns out that the integrated aero cockpit thing of a Canyon road bike is perfect for balancing pizza while you ride back from the takeaway.
One of my better ones was 100L bag of garden bark, plus potatoes, plant plot and some plants in the pannier bags. Box was empty but putting the bark into it made the weight too high, so just strapped in on top.
35kg of titanium 3D printing powder in a Bob Yak trailer. Junctions on hills were hard going. Only the thought of a £7k bill for ****ing it up kept me going for the 30k ride home.
Track pump that I put through the front wheel and destroyed a carbon rim last week!
Once I took out a spare inner tube and pump. That was ridiculous not something I would normally do
I have 3 I can recall.
One of those floor to ceiling aco prop style bike racks strapped along the top tube. A snowboard bag, Wheely multi board one, strapped to my courier bag. Was folded on half first, thought it would be easy, but it resulted in zero ability to look over my shoulders, was a scary commute home from central London. And also strapped to the courier bag, a bin, one of the standard black plastic outdoor sized one before Wheely bins made them extinct. That was home along the canal so no scaryness there, but a few comments.
All on either a hybridised stump jumper or on one inbred fixie. Fun times. I have a car now.
Back in the day when I didn't have much, I had to rely on my Yuba Mundo cargo bike for a lot of things, it was mostly for collecting wood for my open fire...
and 25kg gas bottles...
Taking fridge/freezer to recycling...
transporting bikes...
and in training mode, it was 100kgs...
Sorry, it wont let me upload images or I don't know how to do it!
^ It's worth clicking those images. 😂 Superb stuff.
I've long been a fan of bike cargo jenga. It tends not to be the well thought through objects that cause the trouble. It's the must have items you spot on the way back from the pub, particularly those that catch the wind.
Chief amongst these was a large erotic framed embroidery I saw abandoned outside a shop. The fierce coastal gusts made the enterprise both terrifying and occasionally thrilling.
Lightmans pictures are great 😂
Reminds me of a story my parents tell. For about 3 years they only have 2 touring bikes, no car, and were refurbing their house (my Dad is also a keen woodworker) and semi regularly carried lengths of timber back from the DIY shop between them across their two bikes in the early 80s!! Apparently roundabouts were interesting 😅😅
I think Lightman wins, those photos are great, and the perfect answer to people who bang on about how we can't have LTNs because sometimes people need to move a fridge 😂
A BMX back when I had to ride a good distance to the trails I would strap the BMX to my backpack and pedal either my MYB or road bike to the trails.