Tophat Fiddle
Member
Okay, so--as you may know, I play the fiddle, and I'm certainly not going on any extended bike tour without my fiddle.
I do have a travel fiddle that fits inside a 5-inch document tube, but I'd really rather take an actual instrument, so...I think I'm going to see if I can make this work.
The bungee cord is just for testing fit--the actual hard case is to be mounted with hardware so that it can clip directly and securely onto the rear pannier and the back of the seat. With instrument, two bows, and various doodads, the whole loaded case weighs 4.8 pounds. All my camping gear and whatnot would go into the large back pannier (on the other side) and two seat panniers (one removed for fiddle case fit).
The case is attached only to points on the bike that are upwind of the shock, so I think/hope that will be sufficient vibration attenuation so as not to destroy the instrument, which is actually fairly robust except for one little thing (the soundpost), which I have a workaround for (I'm going to glue it in place).
As the weather warms up, I'll dummy load the case with water bottles to bring it to weight and go test ride it for a week or two, then I'll try it with an actual instrument in there. I have an el-cheapo instrument that I'll test with first (with an unglued soundpost), and if that seems to be okay in weather and all, I'll try it with the...other one, which is not an el-cheapo, but is also not terribly delicate.
More to come--and if you go to Oklahoma Freewheel or RAGBRAI this year, look for me
I do have a travel fiddle that fits inside a 5-inch document tube, but I'd really rather take an actual instrument, so...I think I'm going to see if I can make this work.
The bungee cord is just for testing fit--the actual hard case is to be mounted with hardware so that it can clip directly and securely onto the rear pannier and the back of the seat. With instrument, two bows, and various doodads, the whole loaded case weighs 4.8 pounds. All my camping gear and whatnot would go into the large back pannier (on the other side) and two seat panniers (one removed for fiddle case fit).
The case is attached only to points on the bike that are upwind of the shock, so I think/hope that will be sufficient vibration attenuation so as not to destroy the instrument, which is actually fairly robust except for one little thing (the soundpost), which I have a workaround for (I'm going to glue it in place).
As the weather warms up, I'll dummy load the case with water bottles to bring it to weight and go test ride it for a week or two, then I'll try it with an actual instrument in there. I have an el-cheapo instrument that I'll test with first (with an unglued soundpost), and if that seems to be okay in weather and all, I'll try it with the...other one, which is not an el-cheapo, but is also not terribly delicate.
More to come--and if you go to Oklahoma Freewheel or RAGBRAI this year, look for me
