[Yak] Styrofoam and Prague

[Frank Krygowski]

charles voigtsberger wrote:

> I've thought about the problem of styrofoam or other
> packing material moving around inside the suitcase as I
> prepare to pack my tandem for a trip to Prague. 

Ouch.  We had our Fridays in Prague last year.  IMO, it's a contender for the least cycling-friendly city on the planet.  Cobblestones absolutely everywhere.  Steep hills, lots of trolley tracks with wheel-catching slots, tons of one-way streets that were always the wrong way for us...  

We loved the old town, and the public transit was great.  But not the biking.

> I am going to place velcro dots on the wall of the suitcase and
> corresponding dots on the styrofoam. (it would be nice to
> have custom vacuum molded stryrofoam to place around the
> bike but then there is the real world.)

Here's a brainstorm:  Could "Great Stuff" (expandable foam in a spray can) be used to make custom foam pads?  You'd want the "window and door" version with supposedly much less expansion pressure.  The standard stuff would blow your case apart.  I envision spraying it into stout plastic bags, slipping them into place, and letting the foam expand to fit.  

You might want to put rags, towels, etc. between the bike and the bags first, and you'd _definitely_ want to test it on something much less valuable.  It's disastrously sticky, if it escapes.

But it's a brainstorm.

- Frank Krygowski