Originally Posted by
sapporoguy
Ha, yes, slight! I paid roughly $180 with tax. That comes out to 1.8 cents a mile for the first 10,000 miles, and it will last many more. I'm a cheapskate--except for stuff I don't want breaking on tour, especially if I expect it to last the life of the bike.
I haven't broken any of my "cheap" racks. Some certainly have well over 10k miles, but I don't keep track. I have run a variety of racks because they have been on a variety of bikes and carried a variety of loads. If they were all tubus I'd easily have spent $1000 in racks by now. Rat wouldn't be the end of the world, but on the other hand, all of the racks I have used have served well and none have failed. I especially liked the axiom streamliner, but it hasn't suited the bike and load on recent trips so it hasn't been used in ages.
My usage case probably isn't typical though. If I had bought one set of racks for a standard touring bike and toured with regular panniers from then on a set of tubus racks would have not been that big of an investment. Not a necessity, but not crazy over the top either.