Originally Posted by
mattbur
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Going thru the sticky thread "pictures of your loaded bikes" I noticed a fair number of bikes with all the loaded bags on the front end of the bike. Is there a reason for this? Is it or could it be for handling?
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A really good photo gallery is at this link:
http://www.pbase.com/canyonlands/fullyloaded
But a lot of the people that submitted their photos are on really long tours and are carrying heavier than average loads, so don't jump to the conclusion that these bikes are "average". Since the photos are a global collection you will see brands there that are not imported to USA.
Originally Posted by
velonomad
This is true along with other factors. Many folks are using cross bikes for touring which have shorter(<45cm) chainstays , Many newer racks are offset to the rear of the axle to compensate for shorter chainstays and/or disc brakes. Many racks are mounted way too high.( should just clear the top of the fender or ~1" above the tire). Many panniers have poor or non existed lower hooks to keep the bags from swaying. Traditionally tourists sat an spun the pedals in a low gear up steep hills, not stand on the pedals and rock the bike like a sprinter.
All of that said touring bikes do handle better with a fore/aft balanced load.
It also is a factor of just how solid the bike is. Several years ago I did a group tour with Adventure Cycling. One guy had a Co Motion Americano with S&S couplers and he was carrying the really big Arkel rear panniers, no front panniers. I asked how it handled with that heavy of a rear load. He said that the bike had such a solid frame that it really did not matter how he distributed the load. And that since he broke the bike down to fit in the S&S case (an airline acceptable 26" X 26" X 10" case) that he decided to leave the front rack and front panniers home to reduce the amount of stuff he had to get onto the airliner and to reduce assembly and disassembly time.
A few months ago I had some very heavy panniers that I weighted down with bricks to test a new bike I was building up. Just for the heck of it I put all the bricks in only the rear panniers and put those on my Thorn Nomad expedition bike. This bike has a really solid heavy steel frame. I took it out for a spin in the neighborhood and was surprised that it handled that much of a rear weight very very well. I know my other bikes would not have handled that much weight very well on just the rear. But the Nomad has very robust frame tubing.
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I agree with your comments on some rear racks being too far back or too high. And I would go further to say that some racks are flimsy by design.
I new bike I built up a couple months ago has the rear rack mounts at the rear dropouts about an inch and a half higher than on most other bikes, thus the rack is boosted up that much higher. But fortunately I have a rack with the lower rails to hang the panniers from so the panniers are mounted at a reasonable height.