FR2739089A1 - Container for transporting assembled bicycles - Google Patents

Abstract

The container consists of a base (3), side (4) and end (5) walls and a lid (2), forming a parallelepiped shape, and a rack (18) at each end of the base with slots (19) to receive the bicycles' front and rear wheels. The container is made at least partly from sheet metal, plastic or cardboard; its corners are strengthened by reinforcing members (16). the two racks are made from rectangular panels of cardboard, folded into the shape of triangular prisms positioned so that their slotted hypotenuses face inwards at the two ends of the container. The bicycles are preferably packed in the container facing in alternate directions.

Description

CONTAINER FOR PACKAGING AND
TRANSPORT OF CYCLES
The present invention relates to a container for conditioning cycles.

 It is known that, according to the state of the art, bicycles are packaged individually by means of various devices. These devices can be constituted by flexible plastic envelopes, in which case it is difficult to stack the bicycles on top of each other to ensure their transport in a minimum of space. These packages can also consist of cardboard boxes, in which are all the elements of the bicycle, the bicycle being at least partially disassembled. The fact that, during transport, the handlebars are substantially parallel to the mean plane of the bicycle is not in itself annoying since its return to the position of use is a simple adjustment, but in any case so far , it is necessary, at the time of unpacking, to provide a qualified workforce likely to intervene to put the bicycle in its configuration of use; in fact, it is necessary, at least, to bring into their position of use, the pedals, which, for transport, are positioned upside down on the axis of the crankset, so that the two pedals are directed towards the plane middle of the cycle and not outwards.

 The disadvantage of the intervention of a workforce at the time of unpacking is that it is never possible to know with certainty if the cycle has been properly fitted since no safety check is ensured after the intervention of said workforce.

This is the reason why it appeared desirable to ensure the assembly of the cycles in the factory, which means transporting them all assembled from the factory to the point of sale. However, there is a problem for the conditioning of all assembled cycles knowing that the pedals of the cycle project outward. If we imagine a unit packaging, for example cardboard, there is necessarily, in this packaging, a large lost space and the size of the packaging is excessive, which leads to an unacceptable tolerance of the cost of the cycle. If the packaging has protuberances for the projecting parts of the cycle, it no longer constitutes a stackable element capable of being transported on pallets.

 The present invention aims to solve in a simple and economical way the problem posed by the conditioning of all assembled cycles. In the remainder of this description, a “fully assembled cycle” will be used to mean a cycle which includes all of its elements and whose pedals are in the position of use; the handlebar of such a cycle is not necessarily in the position of use and its mean line can be brought to be parallel to the mean plane of the cycle for the packaging and transport position; the replacement of the handlebars is an adjustment operation, which takes account of the morphology of the user. According to the invention, it is proposed to condition the cycles on two wheels in containers which contain a plurality of cycles, the cycles are maintained inside the container by racks cooperating with each of the two wheels of each cycle. These containers can be made of metal, plastic or cardboard; they can be reusable. In addition, the containers can be made in such a way that they can be brought directly to the point of sale by acting as a display, the containers then preferably having a foldable zone which allows the presentation to the public of the cycles packaged in the container.

The present invention therefore has as an object a container intended for the transport of cycles with two wheels completely assembled, comprising an external envelope in the form of a right parallelepiped consisting of a side wall, the edges of which are arranged vertically in use. , said side wall being delimited between a lower face and an upper face, said upper face being materialized by a removable cover, characterized in that said outer casing contains, in the vicinity of two of its non-adjacent lower edges, two racks, each two racks defining the same number of holding devices making it possible to maintain the front and rear wheels of each of the cycles
fully assembled packaged in the container, the
maintenance of the two racks being two by two opposite, for
constitute couples, so that the cycles, placed side by side in the container by engagement of their wheels in the two holding devices of the same couple, have their substantially longitudinal mean planes.

 In a preferred embodiment, each rack receives in its holding devices, alternately a front wheel and a rear cycle wheel, so that the cycles are arranged head to tail in the container; a rack has an oblique wall with respect to the two faces of the envelope, which intersect along the lower edge in the vicinity of which it is located.

 The container according to the invention can be made at least partially from sheet metal, rigid plastic or cardboard. When made of metal or plastic, the container is reusable; when made of cardboard, the container can be reusable but, of course, the reuse is limited to a number of successive uses much lower than with a metal or plastic container.

 According to a preferred embodiment, the outer casing and the racks are made of cardboard, said outer casing resting on a rigid pallet, for example made of wood, stiffeners, one end of which rests on said pallet, being arranged along the vertical edges of the container. The presence of the stiffeners makes it possible to stack several containers according to the invention one on top of the other, which constitutes a great advantage for storage. The outer casing may have a side wall, the cross section of which corresponds to the quadrangular in plan view form of the pallet, said side wall comprising angled lugs which fit onto the angles of the pallet; of course, the brackets can be stapled or glued to the corner elements of the pallet, to ensure the attachment of the outer envelope to the pallet. The legs can be arranged at each angle of the side wall and the edges of the brackets, which they constitute, are preferably in the extension of the vertical edges of the side wall.

 The outer envelope may include a bottom laterally delimited by the side wall of said outer envelope, this bottom resting on the upper face of the pallet; the presence of such a bottom, consisting, for example, of a rectangular cardboard sheet, makes it possible to avoid the entry of dust or moisture through the elements which constitute the pallet, which is particularly useful when this is a wooden pallet such as those conventionally used in handling, because in the absence of this bottom, the container would not be closed at the lower face of its outer envelope.

 The lid of the container may advantageously include flaps forming a fitting skirt which covers the upper part of the side wall of the outer envelope; this nesting contributes to the rigidity of the assembly formed by the container.

 The side wall of the outer casing may advantageously include, on at least one of its faces, a flap which, after removal of the cover, can be folded up to allow the interior of the container to appear largely. This arrangement allows the container to be used directly at the point of sale as a display, since the cycles contained therein are then clearly visible to customers. When the side wall is produced in two assembled parts, if the two identical parts are produced for the purpose of standardization, the container may have a flap on two opposite faces of the side wall of its outer envelope.

 When the envelope is made of cardboard, each rack can advantageously consist of a strip of substantially rectangular cardboard folded so as to form a straight prism, the cross section of which is a right triangle, the hypenous side of said prism comprising recesses oblong, the axes of which are parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the prism, the width of the recesses allowing a wheel of the cycles to be penetrated therein. It is preferably provided that the mean longitudinal planes of the cycles conditioned in the container are vertical and oriented parallel to the edges defining the length of the outer envelope, the width of the strip of cardboard making up the rack being substantially equal to the width of said outer envelope.

 According to an advantageous embodiment, the stiffeners are bars, for example wooden battens of square section, maintained in the vicinity of the vertical edges of the container by strips cut in the side wall of the outer envelope, each strip forming an arch, which surrounds a stiffener on the inside of the container.

To better understand the object of the invention, we will now describe, by way of purely illustrative and non-limiting example, an embodiment shown in the accompanying drawing. The fold lines have been represented in dotted or dashed lines in all of the drawing figures
On this drawing
- Figure 1 shows a general view of the container according to the invention in elevation from the side of a large face of its side wall, the position of a bicycle inside the container having been shown in dashed lines, the position of the bottom bracket of an adjacent bicycle inside said container having been shown in phantom
- Figure 2 shows, in perspective, the container of Figure 1, the cover being assumed to be positioned above the side wall of the outer envelope of the container and no bicycle being inside said container
- Figure 3 shows, in exploded perspective, the container of Figures 1 and 2, the bursting having been carried out parallel to a vertical edge of the container
- Figure 3A shows, in detail, part A of Figure 3
- Figure 3B shows, in detail, part B of Figure 3
- Figure 4 shows, in plan, the pre-cut cardboard sheet making up one half of the side wall of the outer envelope of the container of Figures 1 to 3
- Figure 5 shows, in plan, the cut cardboard sheet allowing, after folding, to constitute one of the racks of the container of Figures 1 to 3
- Figure 6A shows a section on VI-VI of Figure 3 of the area A shown in detail in Figure 3A
FIG. 6B represents a section along VI-VI of FIG. 3 of zone C of FIG. 3.

 Referring to the drawing, it can be seen that the container according to the invention comprises an outer envelope in the form of a right parallelepiped, said outer envelope being defined by a side wall 1, the upper rectangular edge of which is covered by a cover 2 and the lower border, also rectangular, rests on a pallet 3. The pallet 3 is not shown in detail in the drawing since it is a completely classic wooden transport pallet, it being understood that the dimensions of said pallet are adapted to the overall dimensions of the container floor according to the invention.

 The side wall 1 is constituted by the assembly of two identical cardboard elements, one of which is shown in plan in Figure 4. The container according to the invention has two large vertical side faces 1 and two small vertical side faces 5 ; each component of a side half-wall has a face 4 and a face 5, the assembly of the two side half-walls being effected by a tongue 6 formed on one of the edges of each small face 5, the tongue 6 being folded square to the face 5 to make the assembly by gluing or stapling. At the base of the faces 4 and 5, tabs 7 have been provided, which come to fit on the corners of the pallet 3; there is therefore at each angle a tab 7 consisting of two angled flaps; to the right of the vertical edges of the side wall 1, where the junction of two side half-walls is carried out, the two flaps each belong to one of the assembled side half-walls while, to the right of the other two vertical edges, the two flaps are connected together by a fold line and belong to the same side half-wall element. The tabs 7 can be fixed on the corner elements of the pallet 3, for example by stapling.

 As it is clearly visible in FIG. 4, on the inner border of each element of the side half-wall, between flaps of tab 7, flaps 8 and 9 have been defined corresponding respectively to the large face 4 and to the small side 5 of a side half-wall; these flaps 8 and 9 are intended, for forming the outer envelope, to be folded perpendicular to the faces 4 and 5 to come into the bottom plane of the container. Furthermore, on the upper edge of each side half-wall, flaps 10 and 11 have been defined corresponding respectively to faces 4 and 5, these flaps being intended, when the container is formed, to be folded perpendicular to faces 4 and 5.The face 4 of a side half-wall further comprises a cutout, which begins on the edge of the flap 10 and which extends in the direction of the central zone of the face 4, the cut lines thus define a seat 12, capable of being folded outwards around the fold line 13, which is parallel to the horizontal edges of the face 4.

 The upper face of the outer envelope of the container is covered by a removable cover 2, which comprises, on its periphery, an interlocking skirt 14 formed by flaps folded perpendicularly to the bottom 2a of the cover. When the cover is placed on the side wall 1 of the container, the skirt 14 is positioned all around the upper edge of the side wall 1, so that it strengthens the solidity of the closed container. The production of such a cover is well known in the state of the art and will therefore not be described in detail.

Each side half-wall has, in the zones corresponding to the vertical edges of the container, cutouts 15a, 156, 15c. On the border where the tongue 6 is located, two cutouts 15a have been put in place, each of which defines a rectangular strip between two cutout lines, part of this strip being taken on the tongue 6 and another part on the face 5 , the rectangular strip comprising a folding zone in line with the folding edge of the tongue 6 and a folding zone at its end opposite the free edge of the tongue 6; the cutouts 15a are arranged symmetrically with respect to the average longitudinal line of the side half-wall; in the example described, the total length of the rectangular strips corresponding to the cutouts 15a is 85 mm and
the width is 45 mm, the width of the tongue 6 being 40 mm.

The cutouts 15b are similar to the cutouts 15a, except that they are arranged so as to define a rectangular strip
which extends over 45 mm on either side of the fold which constitutes a
vertical edge between the faces 4 and 5 of the same side half-wall.

The cutouts 15c are arranged along the edge of a half-wall
lateral which is opposite to that where the tongue 6 is located; each
cutout 15c a, perpendicular to the border along which
it is practiced, a length of 45 mm and the rectangular strip
thus defined is connected to face 4 by a fold line. Groups
rectangular corresponding to the cutouts 15b and 15c are also connected to the faces 4 and 5 by fold lines. The cutouts 15a, 15b 15c are defined by cut lines located at the same distance from the free edge of the flaps 10 and 11. When the side wall of the container is shaped to form a rectangular parallelepiped, the legs 15b are pushed towards the inside of the container to form hoops; in the same way, each tab 15a of a side half-wall is fixed on a tab 15c of the other side half-wall, so that the assembly 15a-15c can also constitute, when it is pushed back in the direction 1 interior of the container, a hoop although it is on a connecting edge of two side half-walls.

 It can therefore be seen that there is thus constituted, on each vertical edge of the container, two identical arches, each of which defines with the side walls 4 and 5, a passage; in said passage, a cleat 16 with a square section is put in place having a little less than 45 mm side and having a length such that it extends from the level of the pallet 3 to the level of the flaps 11, when they are folded perpendicular to the faces 5.

 On the upper face of the pallet 3, and after having folded the flaps 8 and 9, a bottom 17 is put in place consisting of a rectangular cardboard plate; this bottom 17 comes, by its edges, to bear on the flaps 8 and 9 and, by its central zone, to bear on the upper face of the pallet 3. The cleats 16 come to bear on the corners of the bottom 17 and they constitute stiffeners, which prevent the container from being crushed in the vertical direction, when a load is placed on the cover 2 of said container. The arches formed by the cutouts 15a, 15b, 15c maintain these stiffeners in the corners of the container, along its vertical edges.

 On the bottom 17 of the container are located, in the vicinity of the lower edges of the faces 5, two identical racks formed by folding a strip of cardboard shown in plan in FIG. 5. Each of these racks, designated by 18 as a whole, is a straight prism having a cross section in the shape of an isosceles right triangle. The cardboard strip, which allows the realization of such a rack 18, consists of four parts 18a, 18b, 18c, 18d; the flaps 18a and 18d are those of the ends; the flap 1 8c is intended to constitute the hypenous side of the right prism constituted by the rack 18; the flap 18b is intermediate between the flaps 18a and 18c. To constitute the rack 18, the flap 18d is folded relative to the flap 18c to 45, the flap 18b is folded relative to the flap 18c at 45 "and the flap 18a is folded relative to flap 18b at 90 "so that it returns below flap 18d.

 The flap 18c comprises six oblong recesses 19 equidistant, the mean lines of which are perpendicular to the fold lines existing between the four constituent flaps of the rack 18; the recesses 19 have a sufficient width to allow the passage of the tire and of a bicycle wheel rim. The two outermost two recesses 19 are at a distance from the edges at least equal to the distance separating the middle lines of two adjacent recesses 19. The flap 18d comprises, in its angles, two square notches 20; two notches 21 are also provided in the flaps 18a and 18c, at the level of the folding edges which connect these two flaps to the flaps 18b and these two notches are connected together by a line parallel to the mean line of the recesses 19, so that the flap 18b has a smaller width than the other flaps of the cardboard strip intended to constitute the rack 18. The notches 20 and 21 allow the passage of the stiffeners 16, as is clearly visible in FIG. 3.

 The container, which has just been described, is mounted in the following way: two side half-walls are assembled to form a complete side wall, by means of the fixing of the tongues 6 on a wall edge 4. The flanges 8 are folded back and 9 and the legs 7 are fitted at the corners of the pallet 3; the legs 7 are fixed, for example by stapling, and the bottom 17 is put in place. The arches corresponding to the legs 15a, 15b, 15c are formed, and the arcs are slid, at the four vertical edges of the container, the stiffeners 16 .

The racks 18 are shaped, their folding in the form of a right prism is maintained by an adhesive strip and they are placed in position on the bottom 17, so that the right angle of the straight sections of the prisms they constitute found along the lower edge of the faces 5. One then sets up. in this container, six bicycles similar to the bicycle 22 shown in Figure 1, so that the front and rear wheels of a bicycle penetrate into two recesses 19 facing each other, two adjacent bicycles being arranged head to tail . A pedal of a bicycle is wedged against one of the tires of the adjacent bicycle. We therefore see that there are thus, in such a container, six bicycles, since each rack 18 has six recesses 19.

After placing the bicycles, the flaps 10 and 11 are folded back and the cover 2 is put in place on the folded flaps 10 and 11. The container is thus ready for transport.

 It should be noted that the presence of the stiffeners 16 makes it possible to have several containers one above the other, which is extremely favorable for storage.

 Furthermore, when the container arrives in the sales store, it can be brought directly to the point of sale and serve as a display. In this case, the cover 2 is removed and the flaps 12 are folded along the folding edges 13 previously held in place by a sticky strip, which allows the customer to have a perfect view of all six bicycles. packed in the container.

 The container according to the invention has, moreover, the advantage of not abnormally increasing the cost of a bicycle, given that the price of a container is distributed over six bicycles.

 It is understood that a container according to the invention may contain a greater or lesser number of bicycles and that the figure of six, which has been used above for the example described, is not limiting. In the example described, the container can have a length of 1.75 m, a width of 1.16 m and a height of 1.05 m, the height of the folding edge 13 relative to the bottom 17 being d '' approximately 800 mm and the flap 12 having a trapezoid shape, the small base of which is 75 cm and the large base of 95 cm, the small base being that which corresponds to the folding edge 13. The above dimensioning indicated is suitable for loading road transport vehicles and allows the container according to the invention to play the role of display.

Claims (14)

 1 - Container intended for the transport of cycles (22) with two fully assembled wheels, comprising an outer casing, in the form of a right parallelepiped consisting of a side wall, the edges of which are arranged vertically in use, said side wall being delimited between a lower face and an upper face, said upper face being materialized by a removable cover (2), characterized in that said outer envelope contains, in the vicinity of two of its non-adjacent lower edges, two racks (18), each of the two racks (18) defining the same number of holding devices (19) making it possible to keep the front and rear wheels of each of the cycles (22) fully mounted packaged in the container, the holding devices (19) of the two racks ( 18) being two by two opposite, to constitute couples, so that the cycles (22), set up side by side in the tale neur by engagement of their wheels in the two holding devices (19) of the same torque, have their average longitudinal planes substantially parallel.  2 - Container according to claim 1, characterized in that each rack (18) receives in its holding devices (19), alternately a front wheel and a rear wheel.  3 - container according to one of claims 1 or 2, characterized in that a rack (18) has a wall oblique to the two faces of the envelope, which intersect along the lower edge in the vicinity of which it turns out that.  4 - Container according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that it is made, at least partially, of metal sheet, rigid plastic or cardboard.  5 - Container according to claim 4, characterized in that its outer envelope and its racks (18) are made of cardboard, said outer envelope resting on a rigid pallet (3), stiffeners (16), one end of which rests on said pallet (3), being arranged along the vertical edges of the container.  6 - Container according to claim 5, characterized in that the outer envelope has a side wall, the quadrangular cross section of which corresponds to the shape seen in plan of the pallet, said side wall comprising brackets (7), which fit on the angles of the pallet (3)  7 - Container according to claim 6, characterized in that the legs (7) are arranged at each angle of the side wall and the edges of the brackets, which they constitute, are in the extension of the vertical edges of the side wall.  8 - Container according to one of claims 6 or 7, characterized in that the tabs (7) are fixed on the pallet (3).  9 - Container according to one of claims 6 to 8, characterized in that the outer envelope has a bottom (17) delimited laterally by the side wall of said envelope and resting on the upper face of the pallet (3).  10 - Container according to one of claims 1 to 9, characterized in that the cover (2) of the container has flaps (14) forming a fitting skirt covering the upper part of the side wall.  11 - Container according to one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that the side wall has, on at least one of its faces (4), a flap (12) which can, after removal of the cover, be folded to leave widely appear inside the container.  12 - container according to claims 3 and 5 taken in combination, optionally combined, in addition, with one of claims 6 to 11, characterized in that each rack (18) consists of a strip of substantially rectangular cardboard folded so as to form a straight prism, the cross section of which is a right triangle, the hypenose face of said prism comprising oblong recesses (19), the axes of which are parallel and perpendicular to the edges of the prism, the width of said recesses making it possible to make there penetrate a wheel of the cycles to be conditioned.  13 - container according to claim 12, characterized in that the mean longitudinal planes of the cycles (22) conditioned in the container are vertical and oriented parallel to the edges defining the length of the outer envelope, the width of the strip of cardboard of the rack (18) being substantially equal to the width of said outer casing.  14 - Container according to claim 5 taken alone or in combination with one of claims 6 to 14, characterized in that the stiffeners (16) are bars held in the vicinity of the vertical edges of the container by strips (15a, 15b , 15c) cut in the side wall, each strip forming an arch, which surrounds a stiffener on the inside of the container.