Dylansbob 

Yeah, I've kept if off close to 10yrs. When I lived in MS, I went a bit native with the fried food and cheap beer.

joesch

I have two rear racks, Lezyne and Blackburne, on two diff steel bikes and have not noticed a difference riding without any packs on racks. Both bikes non-butted sturdy steel frames. I have a top velcro strap on back rack pack that will make for a riding difference, mostly because of extra weight and also less aero with side winds. Im sure the frame and wheel/tires setup may make a difference, especially to more sensitive riders.

daoswald

I guess it must depend a bit on the rack. I just don't see a steel Tubus Fly making much difference. It weighs under a pound, and when mounted on my road bike doesn't make the bike feel different, as I mentioned above.
The Tubus Cargo is a little heavier and more rigid, but it has a flex point where the horizontal strut attaches, so it is also forgiving. I have it mounted on my hybrid, which has a stiffer frame from the start, though.

3alarmer 

The Golden Boy 

There's people that can notice the difference in different components.

I assume you're asking about the possibility of added strength and stiffness due to an added rear triangle to the rear of the bike...

I guess, in theory, depending upon the attachments, it may be discernible.

Me? I can't tell the difference with an unloaded rear rack-either weight or stiffness.

noglider 

I used to believe that a significant front load makes a bike difficult to handle. I always put the majority of my load on a rear rack and added a bit in front with a handlebar bag. I experienced the bike twist that Ben describes above but I understood it to be part of the deal. Then I finally got a front rack and put panniers on it. Boy, was I wrong about front weight. Not only did it not make the bike unwieldy -- well, OK I have to put in more effort with my arms, but it's not impossible --, but pulling up on the handlebars means I'm pulling up the weight directly and not through twisting of the bike. Now I get it.

@gugie's warning that an eyelet-mounted rack stiffens the fork has me scared. That rack is off my bike now, and I don't remember noticing differences between pre-rack, during-rack, and after-rack. I can't decide if I want to use it again. I guess I should do it since I didn't notice. Maybe I'll notice it this time, maybe not. This is on my Raleigh International which does have quite a lightweight fork with lots of rake.


@squirtdad, I assume, from all the responses, that your question was about an unloaded rack. No, a rack only weighs a pound or two, so it doesn't affect handling, but once it is loaded, it certainly does. Whether it is acceptable is up to you. Way back in the 1970s I toured on a Raleigh Gran Sport (lightweight steel) with a Pletscher rack and a full load. Lots of wobbling especially at low speed. But I got used to it and never felt in danger.

gugie 

No need to be scared, it's not dangerous, it just makes the ride a bit rougher. If you're running wider tires it can make up for a good deal of the fork's loss of "springiness".

noglider 

Not only that, but some are more sensitive to things like this than others. I seem to be very sensitive to changes, but maybe this is one where I'm not. But I haven't put the rack back on since I read your comment, so maybe I will notice it when I put it back on.

I have a 32mm tire on the front now. And with all the talk of wide tires and low pressures, I've learned I can use lower pressure than I used to use. I use 50 psi in front now, as I'm a fairly lightweight person. It works great for me. I refill when it goes below 30 psi.

But the bike is in NYC, and I'm quarantining upstate, so I won't ride it until I don't know when.

Digger Goreman

Unless carrying top heavy on the rack, no issues. Lower the center of balance ftw.

79pmooney

I have only used LowRider (and equivalent) racks in front so I cannot speak for regular racks. The LowRider types do nothing that change the ride charteristics until you start adding load (obviously). And then, the change is simply the weight, Fork characteristic stay the same. (Now that weight is "un-sprung" weight, basically bolted directly to the wheel, no shock absorption through the frame. Don't put delicate stuff in there, then ride rough roads.)

Ben

buegelfrei

I used to have a mid-90s Bianchi Eros that handled differently the moment you attached a rear rack. The Eros was Bianchi’s “sport touring” model. It wasn’t particularly either of these things, however, the frame and fork included eyelet braze-ons at the tips and seat stays.

The overall degradation in handling was noticeable even when unloaded. The front wheel would start to wobble almost immediately if I tried to go no-hands. At some point I noticed that the bike’s no-hands handling improved. The cause? The seat stay rack attachment bolts had come loose!

Needless to say, I stripped off the rack when I eventually sold the bike.

Kahsyrbag

I have an antique cruiser that always has about 80lbs/36kg on the back, and a chopper with about 30lbs/14kg on the back, and I have used many different racks with them, the main thing I have noticed is the stiffer the rack the better, if the load can swing it can affect your handling, once I switched to racks that can't move on me, I don't even notice the weight at all.

movelo

Fasten the rack to the dropout eyelets, but leave the seatstay attach point loose. Now wiggle the seat-stay end from side to side and you'll see that the rack can't add much lateral rigidity to an already-much-stiffer rear triangle.

Heavy front and rear panniers just make me feel like a mutant ninja turtle minus the ninja part.

That said, rear rack is still the best way to carry stuff, way better than a sweaty backpack.

movelo

On those hot humid Canadian summer days, an entire peleton drafts behind Miele Man....

Is that special juice bottle on the seattube how one powers a 50 pint Noma ?

Bill in VA

After a lot of research for a rack for average daily use, not full loaded touring, I settled on a Tubus Vega Evo.

It is a narrow welded cro-mo tubular steel triangle rack. That means the only hinged joint is where the seat stay mount rods attach to the rack and it is leveled by shortening of lengthing the solid alloy rods that attach to the seat stays. It is incredibly rigid and has not flexed or moved at all. Even with 15 pounds and out of the saddle climbs I get no swaying (again, I said average use, not fully loaded). The rack itself weighs 600g and is rated for 25K or 55lbs. (which I will never reach.)

For local use I keep in mounted. If carrying the bike inside the vehicle to go on vacation, or a drive to bike trip, I dismount it or may not even use it, especially since some of our vacation riding colleagues, who could never be bothered by the excess weight of a nerdy rack or frame pump, always want to ask if you can carry a spare water bottle, tubes, or other stuff. . So sorry, the "rules" say you MUST carry it in your jersey pockets...

My use is mainly a small trunk bag, and/or using the Tubus spring mousetrap bar to hold rolled up items.

greenspark

Rear rack unlikely to do much stiffening because they are not part of the rather sophisticated geometry that makes a bicycle. But a heavy load on a rear rack will perform differently depending on stiffness of the frame. Back when most frames were steel, a sport (sport not racing) frame was flexible to absorb shock. A touring frame like a Raleigh DL-1 had a Cadillac-like-ride (more rake) front fork, but the rear frame would wobble less when heavily loaded.

I once took a classic Italian sports frame (Bella Ciao) from my hotel in Berlin to the train station - loaded with everything we were carrying on the trip, and it was almost un-rideable. It whipped back and forth so much it required all my concentration to not crash it. I would have walked, but we would have missed the train. In Dresden our cousins' bike rental company took everyone's gear back to Prague and we did the five day ride with a change of clothes, camera and credit card in one pannier each. No problem at all.

So, to answer your question, sort of, an empty rack probably won't do a lot of stiffening, but if you intend to use the rack for more than a few KG's (like say 20 kg / 44 lbs) pay attention to the frame, because rather than stiffen, it will wobble to the point of not being rideable.

rhm

A lot of the replies so far seem concerned with the rack flexing under load. I haven't experienced that. And the weight doesn't bother me much; of course if you put 30 lbs on the bike, you're going to feel that on the hills, both going up and down.

The real issue is balance. If your weight (I mean all your weight, everything you're carrying etc) is well distributed on the bike, you won't notice much. But too much here or there, and the bike will shimmy. Sometimes a bike will shimmy so much that it becomes dangerous. No fun.

I like having a front rack, though I usually don't carry much weight on it.

Miele Man

That's the external battery for my CygoLite Rover II light. The Rover II light is just visible behind the mirror. The bag on the downtube holds batteries for the MagicShine knockoff on t he handlebar.

Cheers