Accessorizing the Super Mirage

Ginger has been interested in accessorizing her bike with a wine box or an antique box of some sort for quite a while now, but I just haven't been able to pull the trigger and get it done...until now. From the very start, she's talked about how good a wine box would look on the back of the Super Mirage. So it was definitely going to have to happen. A couple of weeks ago we found an old wooden prune crate at an antique store; it was light weight, fairly sturdy, and had a really cool look, so we picked it up. Ginger found a DIY guide via High Heels & Two Wheels, and we got to work.

The first step was to coat the box with a protective finish. I had some leftover shellac from the Columbia Twosome project that I brushed onto the box, inside and out, to act as a barrier from the elements. I picked up some 8" mending plates, bolts, nylon-insert nuts, washers, and 1/4" nylon spacers from my local hardware store. Then I did some quick measuring to be sure that the mending plates would be positioned such that they would be between the rear rack stays. Once everything was measured, marked off, and remeasured, I drilled the holes for the bolts in the bottom of the prune box.

After all of the prep, actually installing the antique box was a snap. I used washers between the bolt heads and the floor of the box to avoid any cracking as the bolts were tightened. And I used 1/4" nylon spacers between the bottom of the box and the mending plates to avoid putting too much stress on the old box (the steel bars that make up the Wald rear rack platform are 1/4" in diameter). Before tightening up the whole assembly, I made sure that the box was positioned and aligned properly.

The old prune crate looks pretty outstanding. Ginger loves it. I think it's a great way to add some cargo capacity to the bike without sacrificing the elegance of the machine. And the cat likes it, too.