Does a Wald 582 basket require a low rail?
 

This is about mounting a Wald 582 side basket (or Sunlite equivalent) on a rear rack. Does the rack need to have a horizontal rail down low for the bottom of the basket to hook onto?

In other words could this kind of minimal rack

https://www.rei.com/product/697821/topeak-explorer-mtx-rack

Take one of these

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074G4K4TW
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000VNFD80

No lower horizontal rail needed. The baskets are permanently mounted with clamps to the top rails only.
Ben's Journal: Review: Wald #582 Folding Rear Mounted Bike Basket (aka Mesh Wire Panniers)
But you need to make sure the vertical struts on the rack do not protrude further out than the horizontal rails. Otherwise you might not be able mount the clamps or you baskets might be hanging in an angle.

Cool, thanks. And great link, that's about my exact scenario, same basket, same rack, same bike almost.

I use the Wald 582s with a rack that's very similar to the rack in question. I don't share the opinion of Ben's Journal article author. I been using the 582 baskets for about a month and I'm completely accustomed to riding with them. I use them on my Trek 520, which is currently dedicated as my delivery bicycle, as the 582s are not something I would want to remove from the rack on a regular basis. I think that it would be easy enough to remove the rack with the baskets still attached though.

Here's a pdf of the instructions for installing the 582s.

BTW, I had a great experience ordering these directly from Wald, and would place all orders directly from them rather than through the aspiring monopoly known as Amazon.

100% agree. Thanks for mentioning it. And the PDF.