Bike Mount Fishing Pole Holder

Well I've been doing a lot of fishing lately.  And recently I began using my bike to get me up and down the trails along the river I'm fishing. While the bike is helpful with lugging me and the gear to the "Honey Hole", I have more often than not come close to wrecking. Needless to say a wreck with my tackle bag around my shoulder, and two rigged up fishing poles in my left hand would be quite a yard-sale.  So I bought a seat-post mount luggage rack made by Schwinn  and I'd strap my tackle bag on there, and I thought I was safe, but the very next day I almost bailed when one of my rods got caught on a tree, So I got to brainstorming and designed the following solution.

If you follow these instructions you show be bike fishing in no time.

Materials:
1 - 2' x 1 1/2" PVC
2 - #4 Conduit Hangers
2 - Screw on Expanding Quick Caps(for 1 1/2" PVC)
2 - Rubber End Caps to fit 1 1/2" PVC
3 - 1/4"-20 x 1/2" Machine screws and nuts
1 - 10" inches or so of Flat Plate
1 - Schwinn Seat-Post Mount Rack

Cut the PVC into 8" pieces.  I used my 12" mitre saw.

Take the 2 rubber end caps and cut a hole out on each one. I just used my pocket knife which is very sharp, make sure your cutting blade is sharp to keep control of you blade.  Keep the pieces of rubber you cut out of the end caps, you'll use these later.

I did a test fit of the conduit hanger with the PVC, to mark where the hanger would clamp on the PVC.  I was sure to leave enough room for the End Plugs that will screw into the bottom of the PVC.  

Mark the PVC and put aside.  I cut a piece of the flat plate so that it had 5 holes.  the two holes on each end matched up with the license plate holder on the Schwinn rack.  I put a machine screw through the conduit hanger, the outside hole on the flat plate piece, and the hole in the license plate holder, and then screwed on the nut.  Do the same thing on the other side. You can tighten the nuts down pretty tight, once the PVC is in there you can adjust the angles.

Put the first PVC piece with the end-cap on top in the conduit hanger and tighten.  Make sure you reference the mark you made earlier when you were checking for tire clearance.

These End-Plugs are pretty cool.  You crank down the wing nut and it expands the rubber grommet inside the PVC and locks it into place.  But more importantly it offers another stabilization point for this Rod Holder.  

I cut a piece of flat plate with 4 holes in it.  I put a bend in the middle, nothing crazy, just enough to allow full insertion into the PVC.  Unscrew the End-Plug wing nut and insert the piece of flat plate.  Do the same thing for the other side.

Insert the plugs into the PVC through the bottom.  Tighten the wing nuts until SNUG.

Now you can drop those scrap rubber piece into the hod holder.  This will protect the end of your rod should it be that long.

I made a discovery as I was tightening up everything.  The license plate holder is a plug, much like a decorative plug you would put in your hitch mount on your truck.  The plug is plastic, so this threatens the rigidity of my whole design, but I figure if I can reduce vibration and movement of the rod holder tubes it will go a long way to preserving the life of the plug. 

So I tried and tried to come up with a quick solution using some of the scrap materials I had, but nothing beat the efficiency of a bungee strap.

Pop your rods in and go fishing.  

I put my rods in to show how it looks.