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TECH NEWS
Sheffield company launches TiltShift Rail bicycle roof rack on Kickstarter
TiltShift Rail is a new bicycle roof rack designed and manufactured in Sheffield that has just been announced on Kickstarter. The company is seeking £7,500 of funding, and you can pre-order a rack now for £169.
The TiltShift Rail rack, in development for the past year, is constructed from stainless steel and machined and hard anodised aluminium. It’s a clean and minimalist design, the company stating that it wanted to design a rack that is not only easy to use but also looks good on top of the car.
It’s a fork mounted design because the company believes this is a better method of carrying a bicycle on the roof of a car than a rack that clamps directly onto the frame. “Bolting through the forks keeps loads running through the bike in the direction they’re designed to go,” adds the company.
The rack comprises a main tube, available in a range of colours, with a pair of clamps that use two bolts to fit to a T-slot style roof bar. The rack is compatible with most common fork axle standards, including 9mm quick releases and 15 and 20mm thru-axles. The adapter can easily be changed with different end caps if you’ve a garage full of bikes with different front axles. The rear wheel is secured in place with a pair of rollers and a ratchet strap.
To ensure good stability, and prevent the bicycle rack from shifting under load, the company has added a “keyway” under the main rail which interfaces with the clamps on the roof mounts and prevents the tube from rotating. The rack can be easily adjusted for different bike and wheel sizes with the clamps sliding along this keyway.
Security has been considered. The company has developed a lock that slides through the main tube and prevents access, with a standard padlock, to the fork quick release lever.
Expensive isn't it? Well you certainly don’t have to look far to find bicycle racks costing less than the £169 TiltShift is charging. Here’s the company’s explanation for the price:
“Why spend £169 on a bike rack when you can go to the local motor factors and buy one for half the price? Well perhaps you have you sat behind 'that car' on a motorway watching several thousand pounds worth of carbon bike wobbling round, waiting to make its break for freedom. Or winced as someone ratchet-straps some lovely carbon wheels to the top of their car, scratching both the bike and the car as bungee cords decide they don't want to attach (do they ever?)? We have, hence the reason we decided to engineer these products. We also think that individuality is key - TiltShift Rail is designed to stand out in a crowd.”
To find out more about the rack or to pledge your support for it, head over to the Kickstarter page here.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
Latest Comments
- LordSandwich 1 hour 4 min ago
As someone who drives a diesel, I was looking at that and thinking "that's been the normal price for ages!" 😭
- ErnieC 1 hour 11 min ago
Glad I got mine before that change in ownership.
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And 3 of the 'workers' are just leaning!
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My first thought on reading the headline was "ooh, has Clevedon put in covered bike parking now?".
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28 comments
Thanks for your explanation of the forces transmitted to the forks Ben. Very helpful.
Ron,
Wheel base is adjustable up to 1650mm in standard format (suitable for long mountain bikes) but longer could be catered for using a on-off main bar. Obviously lead time would be longer for a one-off as each bar goes through several surface finish treatments etc, but technically it's easily achieved.
Thanks,
Ben
Looks like a good option for transporting a recumbent bike. I have a Thule roof bike rack and it has done a good job on my uprights but the the arm clamp won't fit a bent.
If Ben is still answering questions, how adjustable is the TiltShift on wheelbase?
Interesting reading all the comments, normally I'd weigh in here with full agreement that it's just another bike rack, why would I want one of those....blah blah blah.
Reading Ben's comments though, it seems like he's got a good idea where he wants to take this and taking on custom jobs would be a great way to move forward. I know a number of people looking for racks to secure their recumbent trikes on the roof. You can buy one, from America and it is stupidly expensive or you can try and make your own, I've seen a couple of decent homemades, but I've seen many fails aswell.
Wish Ben and his team all the best.
Actually this rack might work well for me. My large estate car is used to lug bikes and kayaks around, although not at the same time. The kayak racks take up a lot of space http://www.maloneautoracks.com/seawing.php
and my Thule 591 are just too bulky to fit any more and dont fit the down tubes of my bikes that great. The tiltshift rail looks like it takes up less room than the Thule 561.
Will be having a closer look at these I think.
Fella's give the guy a break. They are trying to try something a bit different in the car rack market, maybe not new, but definitely different.
Their USP is that these are not mass produced items, these are almost custom built units. I can see them (hopefully) having a nice niche market for cyclists who want a carrier that can be a chosen colour to match either their bike or car.
You're designing for a market that is already full, I can't see anyone wanting an 'artisan' car rack.
How about coming up with something that would allow a short arse like myself the ability to load a bike (or even better, a tandem) on to the roof of a VW transporter, without killing myself, anyone else, breaking the bank or scratching my van?
Ragtag - if your bike isn't in the shed, then is there anything else in there to worry about*?! In seriousness, using a padlock has one main advantage; if you lose a key, we can sort you out a new locking bar easily after the old one is removed. And yes, the old one could be hacked, but only with some serious tooling.
*The only logical answer I can come up with is home brew
Is there a definitive answer regarding the fixing of full carbon fiber bikes onto car roof racks. For example whether to clamp the frame or to fasten the forks via the drop outs. There is so much confusing and conflicting information regarding this issue !
Not even an integrated lock. You end up taking one of a garden shed.
Ben, great to hear your response to the comments.
As someone who works for another small Sheffield based company I wish you well.
However my concern about your design is about aerodynamics and how your rack will affect fuel use on my car in normal driving, not just when I have a bike on it?
The end plates seem to have the aerodynamic properties of a brick.
Other than that I love how you are offering a bespoke service that Thule etc. cannot do.
Good luck.
Thanks for the kind comments Danger Dicko. I've been driving around with two of these racks on my car for quite a while now and am yet to notice a change in economy. That said, given my car's innate gluttony for petrol in the first place, it's very difficult to tell.
The design of the end caps can be changed for the production version - they're machined specifically for our application and even if the aero benefit is so marginal that it's not worthwhile, I agree that having them look aerodynamic is just as important.
Thanks for the input.
Ben
Is there a road.cc buyer's guide to bike racks? Had a look on the relevant page but I didn't see anything. If not would be a good article.
Hi Ben,
Thank you for your post. Reading through it, you say the following:
This is a fair comment, especially if you will offer the levels of customisation that you mentioned (lefty, tandem, custom colours etc). A niche product.
However, the Kickstart campaign page states:
Which suggests that you are aiming at the mainstream. Therefore the comparisons against existing established brands are completely fair and should come of no surprise.
It seems that the message about the TiltShift isn't clear; is it a bike carrier to compete in an already crowded market or is your strength around a bespoke build service, which will be about as far from mainstream as you can get?
Thanks for that Dan, really helpful deconstruction of the problem. Now you've said it, it's embarrassingly obvious that our message has been lost in the Kickstarter text.
To be clear, we have no illusions that we'll challenge Thule, Altima, Yakima or Mont Blanc for their market. Our product is not designed for that purpose - it uses materials which are too expensive for mass production (316 Stainless Steel of the correct quality, including all fixings) and is produced using processes which do not easily lend themselves to mass production either. The niche we wish to develop is akin to the bespoke, hand made frame industry; focusing on low-volume high quality products. To buy the tools necessary to achieve this is the purpose of the Kickstarter campaign.
In our defense we're all engineers rather than marketing specialists, and our budget won't stretch to buying in that help at the moment. I'll head over to the Kickstarter page now and do what I can to clarify the intent.
Thanks again,
Ben
Then I'd be interested in your explanation as to how "Bolting through the forks keeps loads running through the bike in the direction they’re designed to go" because that's questionable as DaveE128 has pointed out.
When the car with bike on its roof is driven round corners the sideways forces generated by the bike's high centre of gravity relative to the dropout (resulting in pulling forces at the dropout) are huge compared to the gyroscopic forces the front fork dropouts are designed to resist. Perhaps braking (while cycling, not by the car) generates similar forces at the dropout?
Oh, I'll gladly talk about this! I'll describe a simplified scenario which should put into context the magnitude of force we're talking about.
Take a 10kg bike with a CoG 500mm above the line between the front axle and contact patch of the rear wheel (i.e. as if mounted to the carrier). Suppose you're driving a car which generates high cornering G forces (such as a Nissan GTR for example) and are generating 1G of lateral acceleration. In this instance you're putting ~50N (or 5kg) of force into the bike. Taking into account the leverage ratio between the CoG height and the front hub spacing, the torque to be counteracted which is generated by the lateral load will increase the necessary force resistance by a factor of 10. Therefore the force to be counteracted by the fork/carrier interface is in the order of 50kg/500N.
Now keep in mind that one fork will be in compression, one in tension during the event, therefore it's fair to assume that the load is transmitted equally between the fork legs. One receives 25kg in compression, the other 25kg in tension. Assuming a carbon fork is used which is constructed using a 45deg layup, compressive and tensile yield stresses are typically within 10-20% of each other. That leads to the conclusion that if these 25kg forces were to cause the fork to yield, then I wouldn't recommend sitting on the bike let alone riding it.
All that said, lateral acceleration due to cornering is not the most critical load case. One-off events such as a side impact are far more critical. In this instance the same maths apply and anything north of 20g lateral loading is going to cause the bike and carrier bother, regardless of the bike or carrier design/brand. At this limit we're confident that we're equal to or exceeding the best in class, and understanding and improving this limit beyond today's accepted standard is a longer term aspiration.
That's not fair - you could say "everyone wants one" (well most of us on road.cc) about a Colnago C60 or a Pinarello Dogma, but most of us haven't got that kind of cash to splash.
Hi everyone, Ben here from TiltShift. Good job I used my skin-thickening lotion today - seems I'll need it! Thanks to everyone for taking the time to look at our campaign and thanks especially to Road.cc for featuring us, starting a brand is tough and the exposure is much appreciated.
I thought I'd respond to some of the comments here regarding the thinking behind the company and the design. Bikewithnoname pretty much got the idea with "artisan" bike racks. But more than being different for the sake of it, we believe that being small, independent and niche allows us flexibility and responsiveness beyond what's currently available for bike carriers. Need a lefty bike rack? No problem, drop us a line and we'll work it out with you. Custom graphics and colours to promote a brand? We can sort that. Or perhaps a longer version for a tandem? Again, that's something we can do where other companies perhaps couldn’t.
Therein lies the point behind the brand; flexibility, customisation and quality. We appreciate that these values won't necessarily appeal to everyone who is in the market, but for those who do we are presenting an option which makes sense.
The choice to launch with Kickstarter was not taken lightly. The platform appears to be gaining a reputation for long lead times and under qualified people taking on supply chain management with companies on the other side of the planet. Again this is where we differ. We're manufacturers first and foremost and are doing the making ourselves. We believe this makes the difference between someone with an idea and a Kickstarter page, and a company launching through Kickstarter.
And finally, the name. TiltShift came about because our original design, called Orientate, does indeed Tilt and Shift. Being a small team we quickly realised that we couldn't bring a product of that complexity to market without there being a significant element of risk of malfunction, therefore we focused our initial efforts on making a simple product that will deliver performance as promised. The project is ongoing and we hope to launch the product at a later date.
Please do fire away with questions if you have any, I'd be glad to answer them here or on the email in my profile.
Cheers,
Ben
Ben, thanks for the post. Now the tandem rack I might have an interest in - the other options on the market are too expensive and not that nicely designed in my opinion. More specialist markets like these are probably better suited to your business model, which as you have said, maybe didn't come across so clearly initially.
Will keep an interested eye out for any future rack you produce that makes getting the bikes on the roof of the car less effort with lower risk of scratching things.
Good luck with the project anyway.
The QR lock idea is quite nice, but anyone with any determination could probably bend it.
Compare these two quotes from the article:
"...Or winced as someone ratchet-straps some lovely carbon wheels to the top of their car..." (implying bad idea)
and
"The rear wheel is secured in place with a pair of rollers and a ratchet strap."
Any carbon wheel that gets damaged by strapping down onto rack is a joke.
So... this rack doesn't eliminate one of the non-existant problem that it was designed to cure?
“Bolting through the forks keeps loads running through the bike in the direction they’re designed to go” er... no it doesn't. Bikes are designed to counter sideways forces by steering and leaning. Not being clamped by their QRs. I think this kind of design puts quite a lot of stress on the front dropouts.
Seems to be aimed at the kind of cyclist who has too much money and a fancy car - not me!
Still, if you like the look of it and have too much spare cash, I expect it'll work as well as a Thule and a thru-axle adapter (if you need it).
And what's with the name? I was expecting some clever design that makes getting the bike on the roof easier.
It would be a lot better if you had somewhere to store the removed front wheel too.
This rack literally straps the back wheel to the main beam to hold it in place.
Way to solve your perceived problem guys.
Oh wow, a cycle rack just like any other, with a misleading name, from an unknown company, and I have to pay months in advance, and sit with my fingers crossed that the end product ships on time (if at all), and isn't plagued with first-edition problems.
Think I'll give this one a miss.
So it's an artisan Thule 561?
Will no one think of us "poor" Lefty owners?
Left handed user with an Atera Giro Speed - perfect for my carbon Focus! And less than half the price than the TiltShift. I don't care how colorful it is, it won't carry the two bikes that the Atera will for £160, perfectly safely at speeds WELL above the motorway limit (I imagine.....
)
http://www.roofbox.co.uk/scripts/rbvehsel4_tab.php/car-specific-accessor...
I'm not sure how those blunt ends are going to help with aerodynamic drag.
Other than being made in Sheffield I don't know what this offers that Thule etc. don't already do.
Err, so it doesn't tilt then?