Portable Swing / Bike Bag

If you love cycling and swinging in the wild and you enjoy nature, then this Bike Swing is perfect for you!

With this bike bag you can swing whenever there is a tree around. During your bike rides you can use your swing at the best and most beautiful spots. The swing is in fact a part of your bike bag.The swing and also the bike bag are easy to carry by hand. This is possible because the rope of the swing can be used as the handle. A fusion of a bike bag and a swing.

Not unimportant is that this swing can be easily made from a double bike bag that you can obtain in a lot of colors and paterns.

MATERIAL

- wood (minimum 1 cm thick; 35 x 40cm)

- 4 pieces of carabiners (make sure they are big enough)

- Sturdy climb rope +- 13 meters or longer (depends on the height of the trees)

- A little rope

- A double Bicycle bag

- 2 straps of velcro (most of the times included in the bike bag)

- Pliable Metal plate with holes

- Wire (for sewing)

- Nuts & bolts (+-20 pieces) and screws (+-6 pieces)

- 2 hinges (make sure they are strong enough to carry your weight)

- A Yo-yo

- 2 pieces of S-shaped hooks

WORK TOOLS

- Sewing machine

- Sawing machine

- Drilling machine

- Screwdriver

- Scissor

-wood glue

Now we are going to make a single bike bag from the double bag with the necessary adjustments.

- Cut one of the two bike bags off, so you have one single bike bag.

- Take the metal plate and take out two short parts of +-13 cm. Make for those pieces a bag to finish. Make the bags out of the remaining material from the second bicycle bag. Now fold the two parts, so you obtain a curved shape.

- Attach the two hooks on the back of the bicycle bag by means of a nut and bolt. Finally, you can sew a part of remaining material to the bike bag so that everything is tight.

- Sew on both sides of the bike bag a strap of velcro, so the velcro is capable of holding two ropes together.

- Now take two other pieces of the metal plate. They should be as wide as the bicycle bag. Finish these pieces with the remaining material such as the hooks ( see 2 steps back). Sew these pieces on the sides of the bike bag.

Now, we will make the swing: you will need the wood, hinges, screws and nuts & bolts

- Saw the wood to the right sizes. You may do this best with a saw table. If you do not have the necessary equipment, you can also let the wood saw by a specialized dealer.

You measure your bicycle bag. So in this case it wil be a wooden plate of 37 by 16 cm. Then you take 4 pieces for the sides with a height of 5 cm. So you have enough place for storing the rope. In this case it will be two pieces of 16 x 5 cm and two pieces of 37 x 5 cm. At last you need a piece to stabilize the construction. This must be as long as the diagonal of the rectangle.

- Now you make in the two short pieces of wood, 2 holes each to attach the rope. And also the necessary holes to attach the hinges. Attach the hinges to the wood through the nuts and bolts.

- Then glue all the pieces together so that you obtain an open box of which the two short parts can unfurl. Re-inforce the swing by a few screws (3 at each size) in the fixed part in order to convert these parts more firmly. This is going to be the swing.

In this step we are going to prepare the rope for the swing. We just need the climb robe, a little robe and the carabinders. (+Yo-yo)

- Take 2 identical ropes and bound to each end of the rope a snap. You make a knot by tying it well with a second rope. Finally, you fire the ends so they are closed.

- To make it easy to trow the rope over the tree, you can use the Yo-yo. Attach the carabiner at the loop of the rope of the yo-yo and throw it over the branch. This allows you to pull easily the yo-yo, so that the rope comes over the branch. This rope will not hang in the tree. So you are ready in 30 seconds.

- When you want to swing, use the S-shaped hooks to bring the two ropes on each side to each other. So you can better swing.

Finally, you can style your swing by using the remaining material of the bag to attach around the wood. And also a lick of paint would not hurt.

MAKING A HANDBAG

Put the bag on the swing and secure one rope by clicking the carabinders in the hole on the side of the swing. Let the other rope be the handle of the bag so you can take it easily with you. You can do this by making a loop with the two ends of the rope. Secure the end of the double loop in the carabinders of the first rope. Because of the 2 parts you can easy separate the two ropes.

MAKING A BIKE BAG

Put the bag on the swing and secure it by using the S-shaped hooks. Put the S-shaped hooks into the hole of the swing and the bike bag. At last you just put de hooks (on the back of the bike bag) on the bike and you are ready to go.

MAKING A SWING

When you want to swing, you just take the bike bag of the swing and the rope out of the swing. Disconnect the ropes and throw them on the branch (with the Yo-yo). Then secure it with the carabinders on the holes in the wooden plate. And you can swing! Don't forget to use the S-shaped hooks in the rope, so you can swing better.

If you want to see how I experienced my swing or do you want more information?

Click on the link below and you will find my video: