Bicycle carrier with selectively positionable anti-sway cradles

Abstract

A bicycle carrier has a frame mountable to a vehicle and defining a pair of spaced apart support arms for supporting one or more bicycles. The support arms are provided with positioning guides, which may take the form of spaced circumferential ridges and troughs extending along the support arms. The ridges and troughs may be formed by a ribbed sleeve mounted on the support arms. At least one cradle is mounted on each support arm for receiving and releasable holding a selected tube or tubes of a bicycle frame. Each cradle has an opening through which the support arm extends and a tab projects partially into the opening. The tabs are configured to be received and to ride within selected ones of the troughs of the support arms for rotatably positioning the cradles at desired positions along their support arms. A channel extends along the support arms interrupting the ridges. The cradles may be moved easily to a new location along their support arms by rotating them to align their tabs with the channel and sliding the cradles to the new location. At the new location, the cradles are rotated back to engage their tabs with the trough at the new location.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.