bark_eater 

Any one know when Blackburn and Jandd introduced the racks with the aluminum plate? I've got a mid '80s Schwinn High Sierra that I'm looking at putting a Blackburn MNT front rack on, with a visually similar Jandd rear rack. I was wondering if these are "period correct" for the mid 80's or did they come along latter?

T-Mar

I don't know about Jannd but Blackburn's MTN racks appear in their advertisements as early as 1984. They may have been available even earlier but I started my search with a 1984 edition of Bicycling that I knew had an article on touring racks and there they were, in an advertisement accompanying the article. Since it met your criteria for vintage, I didn't search backwards from there.

bark_eater 

This is the style of rack I was referring to. I'm guessing their more of a 90's item.

Salamandrine 

I've never seen a Blackburn mtn rack with double stays and an extra attachment point like that. Would have required an extra custom set of braze ons. This particular mutant rack appears to be from the 90's, probably to fit one of the mutant MTB frames of the era with a swinging rear triangle or something.

The standard mountain racks with a top plate like that came out in 1983, as best as I can recall. It was soon after the Stumpjumper and competitors came out. I sold a lot of them at my high school LBS job. It was definitely not the 90s.

T-Mar

I believe the subject picture is for a front rack to used with standard dropout eyelets in conjunction with lo-rider eyelets.

BikeWonder

My bike has one. I also found them in late 80s touring bikes as well. They are incredibly well built.

Salamandrine 

Oh yeah, of course that's what it is, duh. I blame it on pre coffee brain.

I think the OP is asking about the mountain racks with the top plate in general.

Trivia: I remember that they came out at the same time or slightly before Blackburn stopped making their normal touring racks with fixed stays. They went to those twisted stainless adjustable stays for both road and mountain racks. I always assumed that they had developed the adjustable stays for the MTB racks, and then decided it was dumb to not use them for everything.

There was also the somewhat similar Rode rack, which predated the Blackburn MTB racks by at least a couple years.

bark_eater 

Thanks for the confirmation. I think the touring style racks win on acetic's, but the plates on the mountain style might make up some for skipping fenders on this bike.

BFisher

As is that bicycle. That is sweet!

T-Mar

Yes, that's what I took it to mean too, but Blackburn's MTN series of racks with the "load support platform" were available at least as early as 1984. Also, the platform was't used only the MTN racks. It was also on their Fastrak of the same period. IIRC, Rhode Gear's version was simply called the Rhode Rack.

Vintage_Cyclist

I had one of those Rhode Racks. Here's a snip from the 1981 Bikecology catalog on the Bulgier site. The Blackburns in the catalog are still without the shelf. The Rhode Rack wasn't very good, lots of sway back and forth and one of the struts snapped after a few months. Went and did what I should have in the first place, got a Blackburn.

LesterOfPuppets

MTN rack will only keep your butt dry at low speeds. Many of us in Portland back in the day would screw/bolt/duct tape extensions out the back to actually keep our butts dry. Plastic, wood, aluminum work, just 6" or so to get it out to about the rear edge of the tire and you'll stay fairly dry. Your feet will still get soaked, however.