Mountain bikes inside the bed when covered/closed

[Axup]

The cybertruck has a rolling bed cover.
The moment I saw it I thought: that would be great for secure transportation of mountain bikes during a day trip.

• Has anyone checked dimensions yet to see how it would be possible to fit 2 e-bikes in the bed without them bouncing against each other?
• Are there any third party bike-rack manufacturers making anything for this niche?
• Obviously you could easily use a rail system on the bed with the cover open, or use a hitch-mounted rack, but that misses the whole point of have secure storage of bikes worth thousands of dollars each.

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[Ogre]

The cybertruck has a rolling bed cover.
The moment I saw it I thought: that would be great for secure transportation of mountain bikes during a day trip.

Great minds think alike.

• Has anyone checked dimensions yet to see how it would be possible to fit 2 e-bikes in the bed without them bouncing against each other?

I’ve poked at this exact problem quite a bit. It looks like you can lay an ebike down and the vault will close safely even with both tires on. Putting 2 bikes in will almost certainly involve one laying on top of the other. You can probably do it without damaging the bikes if you do some prep and use moving blankets or something.

• Are there any third party bike-rack manufacturers making anything for this niche?

The truck isn’t even released yet, so no.

• Obviously you could easily use a rail system on the bed with the cover open, or use a hitch-mounted rack, but that misses the whole point of have secure storage of bikes worth thousands of dollars each.

Yep.

Everyone deals with their bikes a bit differently. My plan is to stand the bike(s) up most of the time or use a rack and deal with securing things only when I need to. Maybe keep some moving blankets in the under-vault storage for that.

 

[MiguelAznar]

I plan to carry two mountain bikes on occasional trips from Santa Cruz to SW Utah, so closed vault for maximum range is important. I’m imagining removing one pedal from each to lay flat, overlapping wheels, handlebars forward where vault is tallest. Still, front wheels come off so easily, I may pull those to flatten the handlebars. Blankets between and rubber mats under might be good to protect and quiet the bikes.

 

[Ogre]

I bet you can get them to lay flat without stacking if you take the wheels off. We’ve done this with a friend’s truck with a normal cover, but there is some tangle/ overlap. The Cybertruck should have some more space to avoid that problem.

 

[Axup]

Does anyone know the internal dimensions of the bed with the rolling cover closed?

• It appears to be quite a bit higher near the cab than near the tailgate.
• It might be possible to take the front wheel off and put the bikes standing up, with the front fork facing the back of the truck? Maybe it's still too high.
• Also, I think they reduced the truck dimensions by 5% so that would likely impact the bed storage volume as well.
• I am worried that laying two bikes on top of each other (flat) would result in damage eventually, even with padding.
• Perhaps some 3rd-party company might make a system where two bikes could fold down sideways and have a bar or clamp keeping the two bikes separate even on bumpy roads.

 

[Paradox]

Does anyone know the internal dimensions of the bed with the rolling cover closed?

No, no one is aware of the dimensions of the bed nor the vehicle at this point in time. There are tons of numbers being tossed around but none are confirmed, they’re guesstimates.

 

[Axup]

Here's one of the latest guesstimates of sizing:
https://apple.news/AtYieMVm2TDW-bR63LEtmbQ

 

[Paradox]

Here's one of the latest guesstimates of sizing:
https://apple.news/AtYieMVm2TDW-bR63LEtmbQ

Those guesstimates are from a video which was released today and the video is being discussed in other threads on here, in case you didn’t know where it may have been from.

 

[Sirfun]

I've been looking into this also for our 2 E-Bikes. I'm thinking we'll make a removable mount on a 2x4 like this photo, and cut the 2x4 to the length of the width of the bed. Mounting the bikes with the back tires against the cab with the bikes strapped tight to the cab. I might have to remove the seats, and lock them and the front tires elsewhere. Maybe have the bikes locked to the tie down points near the cab. It seems like the vault cover can be stopped anywhere in its range. So if I can't close it all the way. I'd have it as close to closed as possible. Here's a photo that shows a removable rack like I'm describing.

 

[Bluechip506]

I don't think it will b e an issue. My wife regularly puts her road bike in the back of her Model S with the wheels on. She has a very small 44cm bike though. My 56cm bike fits but with a little more finagling but still with the wheels on. I suppose we could fit both in but we've never done it. We just use my car that has a rear rack.
E-bikes are much heavier but not really much bigger so it should not be a problem in the bed of the CT. Blankets and careful stacking should be fine.
And I'm good at working with transporting bike issues.

 

[Bluechip506]

I was just thinking that if you remove the front wheel, and put the bike in backwards vertically, you would only need a height of 28"(floor to vault cover) or so (I don't have any long travel suspension bikes) at the point of the handlebars (roughly 56-58" from the rear wall). That's going to be close.
A road bike should be no problem with an handlebar height of 24" at 52" back from the rear wall. I am 5'10" so. My bikes are all med/large frames (56cm road).

It just depends on those unknown dimensions.

Sorry just rambling and measuring my bikes.

 

[Axup]

There was very little on the web about dimensions of an eMTB with the front wheel off, (and even ChatGPT gave me the wrong answer ), so I went and measured it myself.

• To my surprise, the front and back (after taking the front wheel off) are pretty close to the same height.
• We need a space roughly 36"x65". (medium size frame)
• The cybertruck bed starts out taller at end of the and decreases as it goes back, which might be a problem.
• If the measurements from the above post are correct, the bed is long enough to store the bike in terms of length (72"). bike = 65.
• You could not turn the bike sideways and push it to the back near the cab (57" wide max point). bike = 65
• Also the width is a little problematic. Truck is 57", but two bikes side by side are 62". So they would have to overlap a bit. This might not be a problem, but it could result in scraping around the shifters and motor control areas.
• The bikes could either be stored right-side up (fork-down), or upside-down (fork-up). Harder to attach to the bed securely if the latter. And this would affect overall height, so probably better to do fork-down and mount to a 2x4 or metal rail.
• Looking at the other photo I posted above, the ATV sitting in the bed probably has ~25" wheels on it. So a quick guess is that when the cover closes, there is maybe 27" of height inside at the back (and that was probably before the 5% reduction), so maybe 25" now. We need 36" for the bike, and it will extend pretty far back towards the tailgate.

Summary: The bed is not huge, and the one measurement that we really need is "bed height with cover closed", which doesn't appear to have been disclosed yet. I personally think it will be a very tight fit, and probably won't work in any configuration. It doesn't really appear to have been built with secure bike-storage in mind.

Potential solution: A mini-camper. Perhaps a 3rd party that does the rack-storage compartments will build a shell that pops on to the top of the bed and you just wheel the bikes into the bed and you attach them to two rails. However this would be a prime target for thieves who could probably just cut it open and remove the bikes. That's why the rolling metal cover was so nice to begin with.

Realistic solution:
Remove the front wheels, mount them to a rail inside the truck, lock the fork attachment point, then lock the frames to the bed with multiple cables. Leave the bed cover open. Not long-term secure, but maybe good enough to have lunch in a restaurant after your ride.

 

[Axup]

Another way of eyeballing this:
The cybertruck tires are 35". Try visualizing two of those next to each other (one in front and one behind it) pushed up against the back of the cab.
That is very roughly the size of the bike with the wheel off.
Probably not going to fit.

 

[Sirfun]

This is the photo that told me it will be difficult to put 2 E-bikes in the vault with the cover closed.

Edit: I went and grabbed this photo while you were posting your comment Axup.

 

[scottf200]

Another way of eyeballing this:
The cybertruck tires are 35". Try visualizing two of those next to each other (one in front and one behind it) pushed up against the back of the cab.
That is very roughly the size of the bike with the wheel off.
Probably not going to fit.

And worse, 285/65R18 is considered a 33" tire even though it's only 32.6"
https://tiresizescalculator.com/285...t=How big is a 285,when inflated with no load.

UPDATE: 35" (34.8")
https://tiresizescalculator.com/285-75r18-in-inches/

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