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During the past year, I had done some thinking as to the best way for me to put a home made tail on my bike to help streamline it somewhat and to make it very useful. I'd lke to end up with something useful and easy, along the lines of what Sendler has had the last couple years in the Vetter Challenges with the tail he's had on his, and I'm pretty sure the best thing I'd like to do is have an entire new seat custom made wherein only the front half of the seat would be for a rider; and the back half would contain the tail sort of built on to the seat body itself, and it would taper and cut off short of a full streamline point, fooling the air (like Sendlers), at the proper angle and length as a ratio to my total bike length.
Instead of the current key unlock to take the entire seat off as it is now, it would have maybe a push button (or similar) unlock that would be inside the built-on tail in kind of a indented area so as to prevent accidental unlatching. The advantage of such a system would be that I could remove and reestablish the stock seat quickly and easily, thereby not having my bike permanently customized in a way that no one else would ever want it. Also, if I ever wanted or needed to switch it back from a solo rider, to a two-up rider bike; or needed to carry a different kind of payload that needed to be strapped on or something, I could switch back to stock via the entire seat. It would have the advantage too that I wouldn't have to put an extra tie towards the back as I do now with a large tote, crate or box; due to the fact that the straps still leave it not quite as sturdy as I like it, but if it were built on to the seat, it'd need no straps or ties.
It looks like, however, I'll be showing up with a milk crate strapped to my stock seat, because I just couldn't find the time and resources to take on such an endeavor. Alternatively, I could show up with a large Rubbermaid tote that would meet the grocery bag requirement; firm up the bottom somewhat or use a piece of plywood for a bottom; cut slits in the bottom of it and lash-strap it around my seat; it would give me a box similar to what some of the electric bikes have in so far as it's appearance on the bike, but the problem would be that it would be wider than my upper body and the front 1/2 of my bike and would likely induce more drag than my stock bike without anything, whereas a more narrow box, tote or crate seems to have no effect one way or the other. So what I really need, if I were going to just place a store bought box or tote on my seat, is something much taller than anything I've found; with width at or about 14 to 16 inches; and length at or about 26 inches. The Dewalt Tough System biggest box was the tallest and narrowest and longest box I could find, but it wasn't tall enough in order to give me the volume I needed to compete in the top bracket of riders.
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