Mtb is a passion of mine. I live at the base of a hill and getting to the trailhead requires climbing this hill on pavement. I hate climbing it on my bike and feel guilty driving my car there. After getting the Stella 4T I searched the web for the best ways to attach a bike rack to it. Shane Kullman's method seems to work the best.
Tools you will need:
1. An electric drill
2. Two socket wrenches
Materials you will need:
1. Two metal pipes at least 1 inch in diameter (I used the pump body from a broken JoeBlow bike pump and some scrap pipe I have around the house but you can also buy metal pipes from Homedept or Lowes)
2. 4 stainless steel bolts, nuts and lock washers ($6 total from Lowes)
3. 1 Yakima CopperHead Fork Mount Rooftop Bike Rack ($89.10 from Amazon.com)
The hardest part of this project is drilling holes through the fender, floorboard and the pipes and have all these holes line up. Measure twice and drill once. Be patient and you will do just fine.
I deviate from Shane's in that I didn't "form" the front pipe to go under the sito and across the floorboard (see last picture). It's not obvious what he did as you can't tell from the two pictures he has but I assume he went across the floorboard thus required custom flattening the pipe to go through the sito. I simply drill two holes on the right floorboard and mount the pipe on one side (see last picture). Have the pipe go across the floorboard will make the the attachment stronger. However, the way I have it seems to hold up ok. Where you drill the holes on the floor board is important, you don't want the pipe to interfere with the working of the center stand. If you retrieve the center stand, you will notice a space between the legs of the stand and the floor board, this is where you want drill and attach the pipes. See the pictures to get a better idea.
Another thing to mention is after you attach the pipes to the bike, the bike rack mounts to the pipes easily without drilling (the rack has for and aft adjustment). The scooter handles very nicely with a 35lb mountain bike on the rack. I left enough room to put a leg down on the right side and enough room to kick start the bike (Stella kick starts very easy). Since I mounted the rack on the right side where the engine is, the scooter feels a little right side heavy but I quickly get used to the feel and was able to compensate for it when turning and riding.
Update 12/3/2012...After riding the last few weeks with the rack on the right side, I am convinced that mounting it on the right side is the correct decision. The weight balance issue is not realy that noticeable. And you do most of your high speed turning to the left so you don't want the rack to scrape the ground as you lean to the left. On the right hand turns, you just have to slow down and take it easy so that the rack doesn't scrape the ground.
