Help! Rack for race/endurance bike.
 

Hi all,

I have upgraded my bike, currently have Merida Scultura 4000 2019. I had a very good deal on it. Plus nowadays I do a lot of climbing to the Uni and vineyards (I am studying winemaking in the UK).

What are your suggestions?

I have discomfort from carrying a backpack for a long ride. I need around 20L ish capacity: lock + uniform + safety knee boots + wine glasses.

The bike is carbon, but I really like how it behaves when it comes to climbing and descending.

So far I see 2 options:

1) Tailfin
1.1) Just Simple S Rack in alloy £140 (without bag), and then I can strap a backpack on it and can buy a proper bag later on
1.2) Aero pack S £300, with the integrated bag. Can't use any other bag, will have to dismount even when stopping for a coffee.

2) Tubus racks
- Great reputation, have a Quick Release adaptor. Probably cheaper and more sturdy than Tailfin.
But I can understand how to connect it to the seat post.
Looks like I will need Rack + QR adaptor + new seat post clamp + some adaptor to connect them. (total cost can be equal or close to the Tailfin rack)
+Tubus does not have any customer support, so can't ask them about mounting.

What are your suggestions guys?
Alexey

vineyards in Britain? Grapes growing there? Studying winemaking in the UK, isnt that like taking a dentistry course on good teeth care in the UK? (sorry, bad jokes! couldnt resist)

immediate thought was the Tailfin as you mention, but as you say, there are some models that use the skewer attachment point, an inexpensive option is the Axiom Streamliner (I put one on an alum roadbike a bunch of years ago)

your main issue is the attachment point onto the uppper frame, and I know there are seatpost collars that have the eyelets for rack horizontal rails--but your bike is full carbon, so you're going to have to really look into the whole cf frame and cf seatpost thing--it may be tricky to find a properly safe (for the frame) option.

look up seatpost collar adapters, but be very sure of finding out the right info about cf this and cf that.

don't forget, your frame really wasnt designed to take the forces going into these parts of the frame and rear triangle, so you may be getting into tricky territory, depending on how much weight is involved and the forces going into diff parts of the frame/seatpost etc.

as you know, the Tailfin is a rather dear option, but it was designed for cf bikes in mind, so may be the safest option.

I do not know if it is a good idea to put a clamp on a carbon seat post, is yours carbon?

Tubus Fly, I think some people mount that on the seat stay bridge, not on a seatpost. I have no idea how to mount that rack to an axle or skewer, so I do not know if that would work.

You mentioned volume but did not say how much weight that is. A beam type rack that clamps onto a non-carbon seatpost that cantilevers over the rear wheel, could you use a rack like that? Such racks are not designed for a heavy load, you would want to check on the weight rating. Two photos below show what type of rack I am talking about. I also do not know if this would be safe on a carbon frame, I have never used a carbon frame. I think the most weight I have carried on the rack in the photos is about 3 kg. My frame is steel.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...dfc6137a41.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4641a5e280.jpg

My beam rack is a low quality one, I suspect some are better built for more weight.

It has a quick release, a friend of mine wanted to leave one on a bike, he removed the quick release and replaced it with a bolt, I think an M6.

Regular rear rack. Get your drill out and poke holes in the seat stays for bolts to pass thru instead of threading braze-on screws.

Seriously though, hindsight problem solving is harder than foresight planning.

Trade the bike for one that has proper mounts and will do what you are trying to do.

For what it's worth - you couldn't give me a carbon bike. There is something to be said for a sturdy bike, and the delicacy of carbon construction is no where near what I would call sturdy. If you lay the bike down wrong and damage a stay you render the bike useless. With a metal bike you'd be hard pressed to damage a stay in the same way to begin with, and if you dented it that wouldn't ruin the bike beyond rideable.

And now for an actually helpful post...

I recently bought a Carradice rack for my saddlebag. It is detachable and works with several sizes of bag. Mine is a Carradry that expands to about 15L.
If you combine it with a detachable handlebar bag you would achieve your capacity needs and have a bike that can also revert to a racer (I also have an endurance bike).
In my pictures the saddlebag is riding high. It can also be mounted lower by moving the attachment tabs.
You need slots in your saddle for the tabs but Carradice also sells attachable slots so you can use any saddle.

https://www.carradice.co.uk/products...saddlebag-rack
https://www.carradice.co.uk/bags/sad...adry-saddlebag
https://www.carradice.co.uk/bags/han...-handlebar-bag

http://i.imgur.com/Krkv8STl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vkKNQ9ql.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wvTGSb9l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jp6CqhMl.jpg

I will probably agree with you. Tailfin was specifically designed for that purpose. I can get seat post collar, but with carbon frame+seatpost it will be limited to 5nm torque. Tailfin looks more solid from that perspective.

I've only ever seen one tailfin here in Montreal, but I do know they are bloody expensive, at least here in Canada.

Tubus has QR adaptor, so I can definitely install it.

The question is - how can I connect the front axle to the seat post collar. It looks like their angle is not suitable to go high enough.

I do not see a need to attach to a seatpost clamp.

The Tubus Fly is a small lightweight rack, not much of a rack top but good for panniers. There are two versions, EVO and classic, I do not know what the difference is. This is the EVO version.
https://www.tubus.com/en/products/re...roduct/fly-evo

Instructions - on page one at bottom of the page there is a small diagram that shows how the front bracket mounts to the seat stay.
https://www.tubus.com/fileadmin/user...Evo_MA_8.0.pdf

I think the plan for that rack is to mount the front rack mounting point to the seat stay bridge. Maybe your frame does not have a seatstay bridge with a hole in it, most aluminum or steel bikes have a hole in the seat stay bridge to mount the side pull brake unit or a fender (mudguard).

I do not know if you have disc brake or rim brake. If you have disc brake, the Tubus Disco might be a better rack. Instead of one front mounting bracket, that has two, one for each seatstay. This rack also has a very small narrow top platform but would work well with a pannier or two.
https://www.tubus.com/en/products/re...-product/disco

The mounting instructions show an optional adapter on the left side of page one that has a piece of sheet metal that wraps around the seatstay. Use that instead of ataching to a seatpost clamp.
https://www.tubus.com/fileadmin/user...co_2.0_web.pdf

With both of these racks, if the rod or rods that are the front bracket to attach to the seatstay bridge or seatstays are too long you may have to cut the rod(s) shorter with a hack saw. If you do not have access to such tools, a bike shop should be able to mount the rack.

Or, perhaps a hardware store has a clamp like this that can wrap around a seatstay instead of buying the optional straps from Tubus.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-...1550/202875615

T, don't forget, his bike is all c.f., so no clamping, dast ist verbotten!

I might also suggest a large volume bikepacking seatpost bag, but the "knee safety boots" might not fit the shape. https://www.revelatedesigns.com/inde...gs/Spinelock16

There are different and cheaper varieties available but it shows the concept. No clamping to the frame.

I have had Tailfin racks, panniers and now the Aeropack since all of them came out on Kickstarter. I have nothing but praise for them, they are absolutely brilliant. You don't even know they are there.

I'd get the Tailfin rack and the Aeropack. The Rack an be mounted to the bike with security M5 bolts so it's hard to get it off without the right tool. The Aeropack can have a shoulder strap on it and it comes on and off the back in mere seconds. On the bike, you don't know they are there. There is no sway at all and because it's tucked behind you, no windage either.

The panniers are very light, very waterproof and work well. We rode the whole combination down the Rallarvegen (basically a 70 mile gravel road that turns into a rock garden in places) and had no problems. I was worried about the durability and they told me that you can stand on the town main legs and try and it won't break. There is an adaptor to put standard panniers on it if you choose.

The other thing about these racks is that they pack up very nicely in our bike boxes since they essentially fold flat.

It's a great product, half the weight of my Tubus Ti rack and more functional, IMO. Yes, it's expensive, but it's really highly functional.

So I'd enthusiastically recommend these.

J.

Maybe you could consider something like this:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...97888f4b0b.jpg
If it fits your bike, it should solve all your problems

Thank you.

I think I will end up buying alloy aeropack S.
£240 is more acceptable.

Separately rack + bag would be £300, but I probably will use tailfin bag for security and compatability reasons. Sacing money and buying then integrated must be alright.
What do you think?

And also bag strap, does bag comes with it or I should buy it from accessories section?

Does the bike have traditional QR wheels? If so Axiom makes a rack that uses these and a single clamp option that can reach the post collar bolt or the center bolt at the brake mount. It may be an option for less than $100 CDN

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6791a06c89.jpg

I prefer them to be separate but truthfully, we use them with the rack and the packs together. The difference is if you want to remove it from the bike, it’s going to be more fooling around. With this newer rack, you can mount it directly to the bike so with the bike+bag arrangement, you would lose that option.

With the separate bag and rack you still have the option of removing is one piece. The rack does come with security metric bolts which does provide a measure of security and would prevent anyone from just casually lifting the rack off the bike. That makes it lighting fast to remove the pack and go in a store or for quick access.

If you do get the combined back+rack, I’d consider getting the version that accepts panniers. The pannier mounts have an accessory that attaches that allow them to fit all panniers. Otherwise, the mount there is proprietary to Tailfin’s panniers although they are very nice and the mechanism is brilliant.

I would not buy the bag strap (i.e. shoulder strap - it comes with the compression straps on the bag, IIRC). I have plenty of these from other bags and most of them are as good as or better or less bulky.

I get it - this is expensive stuff. It’s also absolutely perfect for the application and it’s hard to beat. We’ve done a lot of air travel with ours and one of the big benefits is that it packs flat into the bike case. Most other racks are kind of awkward and clumsy and that’s a problem for us both for packing and against the risk of potential damage to the bikes or rack from baggage handling. We take our bikes with us everywhere and these racks go with them. It’s also half the weight of the Ti Tubus racks I have (at least the CF version) -and that matters to for us both from a transportation as well as an airline weight limit case.

Great stuff. Let me know what you get and how you like it.

Sorry, not a tourer, but a long time commuter. I have this rack on my CX bike, which is my race it on the weekend, commute it during the week bike. It is a AL frame but CF rear stays. And no where to use the brake bridge attachment as it has cantilever brakes. I got an inexpensive seat collar with mounting bosses and use the arms shown in the picture below. Works great. And so much more secure than the seatpost rack I had been using.

It seems there is no stock in UK. =(

Was just browsing a store here and they have them VERY cheap. Just ordered 2. The prices are in CDN dollars. Would be 30# I would guess. Weight rated for 50 KG

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a1019028e2.jpg

Big-azz bikepacking seat bag would be the most minimal solution, I think, if you could cram your gear into it. I think this one is 16 liters volume.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c73539ee92.jpg

If it is all carbon composite, would it be possible to epoxy hard points to the frame and then mount the appropriate rack?
I've never messed with carbon fiber (or fibre) but I've built a few small boats with epoxy and fiberglass in places and adding something with epoxy is easy.

there must be specific load bearing or load direction issues with this, or one would think that this would be commonly known and practiced.
of course I could be wrong, but I sure wouldn't want to try it on a nice c.f. frame of mine.

A friend of mine after crashing a couple times had his carbon frame inspected by a former Trek engineer, he found several cracks in the downtube. He had been riding on the bike and thought it was fine, but was nervous about it after the crashes, thus the inspection.

They cut a piece out of the frame before they put it in the dumpster to make sure that nobody took it out of the dumpster and tried to use it. My point is that I think it is a bad idea to mess around with carbon frames. I would feel comfortable about fiberglass reinforcing something on my canoe or kayak, did some fiberglass reinforcing on a canoe about a decade ago. But bike frames? No, I would not do that. And I am a retired engineer.

​​​​​​​I don't have the intension to mess with CF in any way.

Alek, this fellow asked about it.
Hope you can get the set up that will work well and fit in the rubber boots, I'm sure they will be the most difficult thing due to the bulk.
cheers