Background of the invention Bike racks are many and varied. Some are designed for mounting on the roof of a motor vehicle while others are mounted to the rear of the motor vehicle, whether by means of attachment to a tow bar fitting, or by attachment to the vehicle body or chassis. Some require the removal of wheels before positioning the bike onto the rack.

Bike racks mounted on the rear of a motor vehicle or trailer, will carry bikes in their normal use orientation with the bike hanging horizontally from its cross bar, or provide horizontal channels onto which the wheels can be positioned. When multiple bikes are suended from the rack they are horizontal and parallel to each other and to the rear of the vehicle body. This can obscure the vehicle's stop and tail lights to drivers of vehicles to the rear of the bike carrying vehicle.

The applicant does not concede that the prior art discussed in the specification forms part of the common general knowledge in the art at the priority date of this application.

Summary of the invention The present invention provides a bicycle carrying rack for mounting to a vehicle, said rack having a supporting member which is mountable to said vehicle, said supporting member having thereon at least one cradle to receive a bicycle wheel, said cradle being oriented on said supporting member whereby when mounted on said vehicle said cradle will support said bicycle from a front wheel and or front fork thereof, with said bicycle being suspended below said wheel or front fork, or in a substantially vertical condition below said front wheel or fork.

The supporting member can be a generally horizontal bar on which said at least one cradle is mounted.

The at least one cradle is preferably constructed from a frame or plate construction.

The at least one cradle has, in cross section, a tapered shape whereby the width of said cradle diminishes in the direction of said wheel moving into said cradle. Alternatively the taper can be such that the width of said cradle increases in the direction of said wheel moving into said cradle-

The at least one cradle can taper in two orthogonal directions. These two directions are downwardly and horizontally, Alternatively the cradle can tapers in one direction, preferably the horizontal direction.

The at least one cradle can hold said bike so that the general plane of said bike is oriented in a front to rear direction when mounted on said vehicle. Alternatively, the at least one cradle can hold said bike so that the general plane of said bike is oriented in a direction generally parallel to a line along which the width of said vehicle would be measured.

Preferably the support member is mounted on a vertical bracket. Also the support member can be attached to said vehicle by means of a bracket mounted to the rear underside of said vehicle.

The support member can be mounted on a goose neck member, with said gooseneck member being mounted to a vertical member which terminates with a connection to a generally horizontal member located underneath said gooseneck member.

The support member can be mounted to said vehicle by an intermediate member, said support member being detachable from said intermediate member.

The support member or said at least one cradle can include at least one tie down ring for tying said wheel or fork to said support member or said cradle.

The wheel received in said cradle can be the front wheel of said bicycle or alternatively the rear wheel.

There can be from 1 to 5 cradles mounted on said support member.

Brief description of the drawings Embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which : Figure 1 illustrates a perspective view of a bike rack on the rear of a vehicle carrying a bike ; Figure 2 illustrates a plan view of the bike rack of figure 1; Figure 3 illustrates a right side elevation of the bike rack of figure 1; Figure 4 illustrates a front view of the bike rack of figure 1 ; Figure 5 illustrates a folding adjustable number plate holder ; Figure 6 illustrates another bike rack similar to that of figure 1 ; and Figure 7 illustrates an alternative taper to that illustrated in ftgure 2.

Detailed description of the embodiments Illustrated in figures 1 to 4 is a bike rack 10 mounted to a vehicle 11, which is seen in figurc 1 to be carrying a bicycle 12, by its front wheel 14 and its fork 16.

The bike rack 10 has 4 cradle portions 20 which are attached to a generally horizontal support member 22, and extend upwardly therefrom. The support member is supported on the end of an angled goose neck member 24 from which extends a generally vertically oriented post 26. The post 26 is connected to a generally horizontally oriented mounting member 28, The support member 20, gooseneck member 24, post 26 and mounting member 28 are preferably each of the same cross section and are square hollow sections. If desired rectangular hollow sections or round tube could be used.

Square hollow section is convenient in that the mounting member 28 is able to be received into a square aperture, such as is available on some tow bar arrangements. The mounting naember 28 is able to then simply be pinned or bolted through the hole 30 which passes through the mounting member 28. The pin or bolt (not illustrate will also pass through the square hollow section of the tow bar arrangement, thereby securing the two together. The preferred embodiment also includes a gusset plate or member 29 between the mounting member 28 and the post 26 to assist in maintaining these two members at right angles when under load and in use.

A scan be seen from figur d 39 the goose neck member 24 and the mounting member 28 are located on the same side of the post 26. This means that when the bike 1 is mounted on the rack 10, its centre of gravity is a close to the vehicle 11-This helps to reduce the stresses that the mass of the bicycle (or however many there are) will transmit to the rack 10.

As can he seen from figures 1 to 4, each cradle 20 is made from a frame 50 constructed from bars or relatively thin square hollow section, of approximately l 0 mm in width or diameter.

The cradle 20 is made up from two triangular sections 50 and 52 positioned side by side.

The sections 50 and 52 have horizontal members 54 and 56 (see figure 2) and vertical members 58 and 60 (see figure 4), which are held by angled gusset frame members 62 and 64.

At the intersection 66 of the horizontal member 54, 56 and the vertical members 58, 60 the two triangular sections are not joined together so that a passage between the two triangular sections 50 and 52 is provided-Whereas near to the intersection of the angled gusset frame

members 62 and 64 with the horizontal members 54 and 56, a crossbar 68 joins the adjacent triangular sections 50 and 52.

It will be seen Eom the plan view of figure 2, that the adjacent triangular sections 50 and 52 are not parallel. They are oriented with a taper which diverges from the intersection 66 to the crossbar 68. Whereas in the front elevation of figure 4, it can be seen that the triangular sections 50 and 52 are generally parallel with each other.

When a bike front wheel 14 is positioned within the cradle 20 as illustrated in figure 1, the wheel 14 will enter the cradle 20 in the direction of arrow 70, with the free ends 68 of the triangular sections 50 and 52 expanding away from each other as the spokes of the wheel force them apart. By providing the taper illustrated in figure 2 the sections 50 and 52 provide a compressive force or bias onto the spokes of the wheel to thereby hold the heel 14 in place.

Further assisting in supporting the bike 12 is that the front axle 13 will rest on top of the horizontal members 54 and 56 which will also allow the forks 16 to be supported by the horizontal members 54 and 56.

As can be seen from figure 1 the plane of the bicycle : ! 6, being that plane which generally includes the frame and the wheels, is in a front to rear directions relative to the vehicle's longitudinal axis.

The rest of the bike 12, hind the fork 16 hangs below the fork 16, and this is kept in this position because the wheel 14 is held in place by the cross bar 68 and support member 22.

In the orientation illustrated in figure 1, the rear wheel 17 can, with the rear of the frame, swing laterally of the vehicle 11, when the vehicle 11 is in motion. This can be readily attended to by tying the wheel 17 to the post 26, or if another bike is in an adjacent cradle the rear wheels of the bikes can be tied together.

The goose neck member 24 is an option and is advantageous to provide a"cavity>'in. to which the rear mounted spare tyre can sit.

As illustrated in figure 7, in an modified embodiment, e taper which exists between the two triangular section 50 and 52'is reversed, by comparison to the taper of figure 2, so that as the wheel 14 enters the cradle 20 in the direction of arrow 70, the front tyre is compressed into the taper and can be held there by friction.

Illustrated in figure 5 is an adjustable fold down number plate holder which can be used with the rack 10.

Figure 6 illustrates a rack 100 which is similar to the rack 10, with like parts being like numbered. The support member 22 is able to be separated form the rest of the intermediate members which connect the rack 100 to a vehicle. At the top of the post 26 is a cross member 23 which has a right angled cross section. By means of bolts 27 the support member 22 can be mounted to the cross member 23.

The support member 22 of figure 6 also includes tie down rings 39 between adjacent cradles 20 and on the outside of the outside cradles 20. The tie down rings 39 allow the front wheels 14 of the bikes on the rack 100 to be tied to the support member 22, thereby preventing any accidental dislodgment of the bikes thereon, particularly in rough roads, or when the vehicle 11 goes over a bump on a road.

The mounting member 28 in figure 6 has an aperture 33 in addition to the aperture 30 so as to allow a. user two pinning or bolting locations.

While the taper illustrated in figures 2 and 7 of the triangular sections 50 and 52 are illustrated in bike racks 10 and 100 as only tapering in a horizontal direction, if desired the triangular sections 50 and 52 can also, or alternatively, taper in the vertical direction, whereby this vertical direction taper would be visible, but is not currently illustrated, in the same view as that of figure 4- While the embodiment of bike racks 10 and 100 orient the planes of the bicycles mounted on these racks in the front to rear direction of the vehicle 11, the rack 10 or 100 can be readily modified so as to ré-oient the support member 22 to extend in a front to rear direction of the vehicle. In this way the bicycles could be stacked in a vertical condition (that is the axles of the front and back wheels will be joined by an imaginary line which is in a vertical or steeply angled orientation). In either orientation of the support member 22 (being parallel to the rear of the vehicle 11 or in a front to rear orientation), as the bikes are in a vertical condition drivers of vehicles, when behind a vehicle having bike rack as described above, will be able to clearly see the side indicator, brake and tail lights.

It will be understood that the invention disclosed and defined herein extends to all alternative combinations of two or more of the individual features mentioned or evident from the text. All of these different combinations constitute various alternative aspects of the invention The foregoing describes embodiments of the present invention and modifications,- obvious to those skilled in the art can be made thereto, without departing from the scope of the present invention