KC8QVO

1. I'd have a spare skewer or two on-hand. They are not as strong as the axle. I can see where mounting an accessory to the outside of the dropout would mean the skewer would have to take the load of the accessory, but with as large of a load as you can fit on that huge front rack I would be worried about the skewers.

2. The bottom support (skewer) isn't the only load bearing point. It may take the most, but the upper supports should not be neglected. The reason being is your load will have a lot of inertia when moving. Two examples of where this inertia will be at play are A. when you turn the bars/wheel at slow speed rapidly to try to maintain balance, B. if you have to stop fast and jam on the brakes. The weight in motion has to go somewhere. Hopefully that is transferred to resistance in your moving the bars side to side maintaining balance going slow or your brakes when you have to stop fast. If a weak upper attachment decides to give up the ghost your load will move and mess up other things.

For what it is worth - on my long tours last Fall (one longer route split in to 2 segments) - I tied 550 cord support lines off my 2nd stem to support extra stuff that I tied up front that didn't fit in the panniers. For a time I carried 2 gallon jugs of water up front with 2 extra drysacs (1 sac and 1 jug each side). The weight was supported from above - off the 2nd stem. Then all of it was cinched up against the pannier with another run of 550 cord. This kept the load from swinging too much. It worked really well. There was still some movement of the extra "stuff" up front, but it rode well and I would surely do it again if I needed to.

I have not tried to put my rear panniers on my front rack. I forget what rack I have. Both front/rear are made by tubus and the front is low - 2 piece. It does not go up and over the front wheel. That is something I think I would prefer - it would be a stronger set up to me and with the heavy loading I've done up front (getting back to the movement of all the "stuff" mentioned above) - I am a bit concerned that the loading might cause too much stress and something could be problematic down the road. So far so good, though.

There are a couple other threads I've had going here in the Utility forum on trailer ideas. I've been working towards getting a trailer set up for hauling stuff instead of putting everything on the bike. I still think there is a place for panniers in my world of cycling. For tours involving a lot of camping and more than about 3 days I'd err towards the trailer as that will give me a lot more freedom with space and keep a significant amount of extra weight off the bike.