alan s 

This for the rear rack. Didn't watch the whole thing, but it appears much of it would apply to the front rack.

DeadGrandpa

I had the Blackburn Outpost front rack on my Safari and it was great. My Seattle Sports Fast Pack panniers fit great. They didn't have a bungee to hook at the bottom, only a horizontal hook to snag a vertical tube. The top hooks fit fine. The rack width was equal to the rear rack that came on the bike, wide to clear disc brakes. I still have the mangled remains of the rack, leftover from being smashed in a rear-ender while on a car trunk rack.

bikecommuter13

I just purchased this rack. I am not able to push the extender through the cam lock. I am not sure if I got a defective rack. Was it easy for you to slide the extender through the cam lock?

Happy Feet

Is the tension bolt undone?
If so you may need to squeeze the two flanges with the holes together a bit with pliers. Try putting the arm through each hole separately. If the arm goes through you know the problem is with the bend it has to do from one hole to the other. If it doesn't you know the problem is with the hole.

While there may be no instructions, a quick google image search for blackburn outpost front rack turned up lots of images showing how to correctly mount the rack.

bikecommuter13

The tension bolt is loose and doesn't get into the way. I can slide the extender through the holes ok without the cam lock attached to the rack. Once it's attached, there is no space to get a perfect straight angle to get the extender through.

Happy Feet

In one review the user suggests the powder coating on the parts makes the J arm not fit through the clamp as you indicate. Their fix was to grind/sand some of it off but that does expose the metal.

I guess the allotted clearances were designed before factory powder coating?

It also does look like it was designed for panniers with a clip rather than hook bottom fastener.

skidder

Never saw this review when I was looking for a front rack last spring, but I looked at the Blackburn at my local Performance bike shop. To me it looked like one of those 'one-size-fits-all' products that doesn't 'fit-all'; too many connection points, screws, and fittings. I went with the Surly front rack; its solid-as-a-rock, easy to mount, and fits my bike with mid-blade mounts with ease. Yeah, it heavier, but I'm only doing credit card touring these days so the extra 1 lb of weight isn't a big deal. The only issue is the tubing is a little larger diameter than most, so the old Novara 'snap-fit' panniers I put on it really have to be shoved on to fit, but once mounted they ain't comin' off unless I really yank them off (which is a good thing to me!).

Edit: I do have a Blackburn rear rack, a simple one that holds about 25lbs max, and never had any problems. I use it for light stuff in a stuff sack on top, or a trunk rack with small drop down panniers, and put my full-size panniers on the front rack. I've got size 14 feet, and every chain stay/full-size pannier combo I've tried still has my heels hitting the panniers.

Alxbr

You would have saved a lot of trouble if went with the Surly Front Rack. That 300g more weight gives you a steel rack, plenty of mount options, compatibility with almost any panniers out there and supreme build quality.
Not to mention the support and clear instructions to mount the rack.

mstateglfr 

The Blackburn Outpost front rack weighs 800g.
The Surly front rack weighs 1382g.

Thats 582g, not 300g. An extra 20.5oz for a rack is a lot, at least to me. Its why i didnt originally gice serious consideration to the Surly rack.

I ended up with a Jandd Extreme front rack that has a platform, has high and low mounting points, and was easy to mount to my fork. Its 330g less than the Surly and does everytjing i was looking for.
I actually like the flat platform on the Jandd more than the bars of the Blackburn and Surly.

Alxbr

I was comparing with the Jandd Extreme that you ended with.

To me the Surly Nice Front rack, being very solid and offering 3 racks in one, low, high and top, actually makes it a pretty good product. I don't think there are any other racks out there, or combinations, that offer these 3 features that aren't of a similar weight. The few that are similar are aluminium which is not my choice for this purpose. To those who continually put this rack down, have you had one and do you have a need for it's 3 main features? If not then it's obviously the wrong choice for you, but not necessarily a bad rack...

skidder

The Surly front rack is heavier than just about anything else on the market, but I think the weight quoted for it is with all the attachment devices and mounting plates that come with it. Check how much it actually weighs as you have it set up for your bicycle and I'll bet its less that what's typically quoted for it.

LeeG

My beef with those kinds of front racks is the platform goes way too far forward over the front axle and the rear of the platform is too far from the head tube. I tried mounting a Jaand to the front of a 700c LHT and didn’t like how the rack hit the downtube. With light to medium pannier loads platform mounted panniers don’t impact handling too bad if they’re back as far as practical. The implied load carrying capability of these mondo front racks is way beyond what I’d ever want to carry for touring. For a utility bike it would be useful but at that point I’m looking at fat tires and really heavy duty.

GP

Since you bought a Jandd rack, I'll tell you about my recent customer service experience with them. My rack has been off the bike for a couple years and I lost the p-clamps. I emailed Jandd and the owner responded within an hour.

Ariane

I have a Surly Front Nice rack on my Troll. It weighs 1.5kg with the mounting plates and bolts attached. I just weighed it. It is the best front rack on the market but it is just TOO heavy. So I saw this Blackburn one a few weeks ago and have been searching the net for reviews of them. Not all are favourable. Many concern the poor mounting and lack of instructions, some complain of poor build quality and mounting parts that do not fit. I have found in the past that some people who have had difficulty fitting simple bicycle components and accessories and who have gone on to right a crap review of the product shouldn't really even be allowed to be in charge of a knife and fork let alone fitting a bike rack. So I take their reviews with a pinch of salt.

However in this case I am attracted by the lighter weight of the aluminium version that apparently weighs in at just 645g or the slightly heavier titanium version at 907g. The mounting seems straight forward although the possibility that metal swarf might remain in the tubes to rattle around is not a good sign and puts me off. If any one has actually fitted this rack to a Surly Troll and can advise this would be an immense help. It looks like it would fit fairly easily though, but until I bought and tried I would not know. My Troll fork has lots of bosses for mounting a rack.

A few years back I had Blackburn rear racks. I think it was the Expedition EX1 and on two of these racks the welding failed so the rack could not carry any significant weight. Then on closer inspection I noticed the welding was pretty poor in comparison to most other makes of rack. For instance welds did not go around the whole of the join on both sides just a spat of poor welding on one side. I made a warranty claim against Blackburn through my local shop which was rejected despite the racks having a life time warranty. I swore never to buy Blackburn racks products ever again which I have managed to do. Until now. So I am thinking this rack might do what I want but then it might fail for whatever reason and the warranty isn't worth the paper it is written on. Plus I don't want to give more of my cash to a company that has already ripped me off.

What would you do?

GeorgeBaby

I just tried, and returned, the rack because of the J-arm fit issue. I eventually got enough of the powder coat off so that I could get it through the hole drilled in the clamp, but there was still interference when the clamp was on the rack. With a handy machine shop I could have reworked the hole through the clamp, but I don't have a handy machine shop.

MHK1

Hi were you using the rear panniers on the front of the bike, they look big, were they OK?