Bike Bucket - a Pannier Alternative That's Self-levelling, Waterproof and Somewhat Secure

I hate to wear anything on my back while riding, but I like to bring a backpack to work to carry my Doritos and whatnot. I'd been sticking the backpack to my rack using a six-legged spider of bungee cords, which added a few minutes of fiddling to my day that I wanted to subtract.

There are lots of folks out on the interwebnets who have used buckets for hauling cargo on their bikes, but I haven't seen it done this way so I thought I'd try it: a 5-gallon bucket with a hinged plywood lid, that sits on the cargo rack. This design has good balance, resists moisture, and doesn't add much to the bike's overall width, is relatively easy to build, and uses materials that might otherwise find their way into a landfill. But the main advantage I wanted was a super-fast load/unload, and I definitely got that! 

UPDATES:

• (July 23, 2024) Okay, I could have sworn there used to be more steps to this 'ible, maybe it's so old that some of them fell of during an upgrade? In any case, you can see the basic idea just from the photos, so I'm not going to build it back up.
• (2023) One major change is that I upgraded the bike rack from a cheap, standard one to a still-cheap (around $30), but much stronger one, which claims to hold 110 pounds! If your bike tips over when the bucket is full (which happened to me once), a standard rack can't handle the torque and may break, so this was a welcome upgrade.
• (2017 or so, I think?) After a couple of years and a couple of bikes, I upgraded from the wooden door in the photos to a Gamma Seal lid, and suggest you do the same!
• (2023) The bike itself has evolved quite a bit, with increased vroom-vroom.

At some point I'll mount some lighting and/or reflective stuff (including my DIY bike flasher?) to the plywood. And I do hope I can muster the gumption to seal and paint the wood bits, but we'll see. Gumption mustered; see photos.

Materials:

5-gallon bucket (don't buy one - find one, they're all over the place!) 

plywood (base is about 12"x8", lid is a 12" circle)

hinge (one is okay, two would be better)

latch 

J-bolts (x4)

screws, washers

Tools:

jigsaw, driver/drill, wrench.

A few notes on construction: The plywood parts are all stuck together with wood screws, and the bucket is screwed to the curved plywood pieces using wood screws with washers. J-bolts hold the base to the bike rack. A pin holds the latch shut. The thickness of the plywood shouldn't make too much difference, but I used 3/4" for the base parts and the stationary part of the lid, and 1/2" for the part of the lid that swings. Cost: the price of the bucket is probably the biggest variable, but can often be $0 if you're willing to do a little poking around - I know it's hard to believe but folks throw these away! The hardware should be under $6. Time: about an hour. 

Happy hauling!

Mike

Step 1:

See the intro: I tried to edit just the introduction, but Instructables insists upon text in the first step (which is quite reasonable) so here I am adding text. Best of luck!