scale

I picked one of these racks up based on all the good things i have heard about it.

I cant figure this thing out. The instructions are junk...but how hard can it be? Its for mount points.

There is no vertical adjustment so with the light mount on the rear (planet bike blinky) there is no way for the thing to clear the fenders on a 700c wheel.

The rear stays on this bike outside to outside measure 150mm. The rack stay mount points measure 180 or more. My caliper doesnt go that high. Are you supposed to run spacers down there with longer bolts? Instructions make no mention of that. Or...are you supposed to bend the rack in an crush it in to take up the space? That also seems very odd and unlikely. Is anyone else running this rack on a hybrid or touring bike. I have to be over thinking this.

My surly racks have had the up and down adjustment on the legs and fit properly at the stays. This TUBUS has me baffled.

curbtender

https://www.tubus.com/en/products/ac...er-disc-1/#ass

scale

Thanks!.

Ill see if i can find some of these locally or some spacers that will fit in the same way. Being what tubus charges for a rack you would think they would include these in the kit. I guess they can make more money if they sell them seperately....

So far i am not impressed but this gets me one step closer to making this functional.

I find it odd that the rack is so much wider than the rear stays....but whatever.

Andrew R Stewart 

It is quite common for racks to not quite fit on the dropout eyes due to differing spreads. The usual is to bend the rack struts to fit, being aware of interfering items like fenders or disk brakes. Sometimes stand off/spacers are needed between the strut and eye, as curbtender linked to. Disk brake specific racks are wider, many racks are available in a disk specific and a non disk version. Could it be that you received a disk version?

As to the lights and fenders- One could easily make a strip that bolts to the rack and locates the light off to one side. Or an extension placing the light out, rearward, from the rack. Like these two shots show. (The first is with the rack on a shelf) (The second in with a rack lacking any reflector or light mounts)




Then there's hanging everything off your bars. The idea is that if a passing car clears the lights your safe too. Andy

Andrew R Stewart 

I should have added in my previous reply that I avoid using stand offs/spacers if at all possible, and the least amount when have to. Why? Because the load on the bolts change from largely shear to more of a bending one. The Tubus racks are very heavy duty (we has 4 in use). It would be a shame to reduce their load capacity due to poor matching or excessive stand offs. Andy

scale

I will probably make that bracket for the rear light. Great idea.

Still trying to sort out the rear spacing thing. This is a standard 135mm spaced (inner) Trek 750. Cantilever brakes.
Perhaps it is space this wide to clear discs...
Not sure i want to crush it in that far. It appears by eye to be just under a half inch on each side. Thats a bit far. They make some uv resistant nylon bushing that i might try to use for spacers (with locktite course).

Andrew R Stewart 

Stay away from plastic for the standoffs. You want hard metal so the bolt can be tightened very well. The tighter the bolt is (to the point of damage to it or the eye) the less the willingness to bend under load and impact/pot holes. Andy

tyrion

Tubus racks are 4130 chromoly. Can't it be safely bent a slight amount to meet the frame?

scale

yeah...i gave up over thinking it and carefully just crushed it inwards....fits ok now

Another cripe is the rods that mount to the seat stay mount on the inside. There is no 4mm allen key on earth that can get in there to tighten them properly.
I ended up running a long one all the way through and then putting a locking nylon nut on the inside rod side. That was a exercise in dinking around trying to get a wrench in there and turning it about 1/16 of a turn at each attempt.
Finally to took out all the garbage torx hardware and put in proper 4mm stainless. Not sure why they decided on torx. Dumb.

veganbikes

The Tubus racks are generally easy to figure out but you sometimes have to work around things and that can be a pain. I would use a ratcheting wrench to tighten the bolts would make it a whole lot easier to tighten or what you can do is figure out where you need them to be, mark them and tighten them off the bike and then install to the frame. If your rack is level the light position should be perfect if not get a level and level it out it will save you from making brackets. Planet Bike makes a rack mount for their lights granted the little blinky lights aren't exceptionally visible so you would be better off upgrading to either a nice bright USB light or going dynamo and never charging lights again.

Bill in VA

Have you looked at these for the stay mounting. They have 3 different offsets and 3 length sizes. The struts are solid aluminum alloy

Tubus OffSet Struts
https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...s.php?id=65426

Additionally, there are also longer struts available for Racktime racks that will fit.

The Tubus struts can direct strut mount on the rack or use a bracket to mount the strut mount. The bracket gives more flexibility in side to side adjustment, but for me the direct mount was perfect with my rack mount on the seat stays. I used direct mount to eliminate as many joints as possible. The model you have is optimized for 135mm hub spacing, my bike has 130. I used the spacers I was told by a Tubus rep and the place I bought it not not bend it more than 2mm per side. I used the spacers to ensure the mounting flats were parallel, and to avoid any twisting of rack lower mount plate or the dropout eye. I believe the spacers are 2.5mm so they fit perfectly on my bike. I bought some high strength metric SS allen bolts for the dropout eyes as the included ones were a bit short leaving a few dropout eye threads showing, and ground them to exact length for full contact over the entire threaded eye. HIgh Grade Stainless steel is HARD. I wanted to use a lock nut, but there was no space on the drive side due to the 12 tooth cog, so I used blue loctite after degreasing the threads.

There was plenty of room for the rear light I used, a Greatful Red mounted horizontally to the 50mm light bar on the rack, as well as the B&M horizontal battery rear light which comes no closer than 4 inches from the tire, so even with 1" standoff from the tire for fenders I am not sure why your light is so close. That could be a frame geometry and design issue. However I do not like that the rear light is so exposed on the back. I would prefer it be mountable between the rear rack legs for a bit of protection.

When I was looking the Tubus was the lightest rack for the weight rating due to tubular Chrome Moly construction. It is also the first rack I have ever used that felt like it was brazed as part of the frame. Not a peep, squeak, or rattle, and no flex. I finished off by waxing the entire rack.

Good luck with finalizing the install of the rack.