skookum

Interesting points about racks.


I have a 40 year old aluminum Blackburn rack, on my 40 year old Stumpjumper. The bike was a mountain bike, a touring bike, a commuter bike, an urban pathway bike and now is an ebike. The rack has tens of thousands of kilometres on it, many as a fully loaded tourer. The racks shows some wear from pannier hooks but is till going strong.


I have Surly Nice rack on my Jones Plus, It is big and wide and heavy. It may not suit everybody.


On my Tumbleweed Prospector, I have an Ortlieb rack 3 which I hate. It was the only rack I could find locally that could accomodate 3 inch tires. The platform is small. Which doesn't work well for strapping bags onto it on tour. More importantly the rails are short. Arkell panniers have cams that swing way outboard , as you clamp them on. The angles of the struts interfere with the cams and the pannier hooks have to be moved very close together, which works, but is less stable.


Pretty hard to source Tubus racks these days. Local specialty bike shop says the distributor will not even give them a timeline for new orders.


I also like bikecomponents.de,, they do appear to have tubus in stock. I have a tubus that doesn't clear the 3" tires on my heavy duty bikes.

I have a Nitto on my Riv Atlantis, which works well and looks great.


A friend that toured alot in south East Asia a few years back said that no-name aluminum racks constantly failed him and he had trouble sourcing name brand quality racks at the time.