How Much Weight?
#2
Senior Member
Show us a picture of the setup. Pull a trailer or a Travoy if you are worried about weight. I use the trailer for the weekly run (80lb to 100lb). I also have a 40L backpack and a 65L food delivery backpack. Either one can carry more weight than I can easily manage, but if I can stagger over to the bike and get on, it will get me home.
#3
Half way there
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: North Carolina
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It depends on the sturdiness of your baskets and where they are mounted. I used a Blackburn rear rack with panniers and sometimes carried as much as 30 pounds during my commute.
#4
20+mph Commuter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Greenville. SC USA
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The type of bike matters also. A Wal-Mart dual suspension "mountain" bike with loose hubs and headset won't do so great either. "Touring" style bikes with long chainstays and relaxed head tube angles, fork rake, etc do the best. A halfway decent ATB well maintained make nice work horses. I'm just guessing the OP has a "normal" bike and not a recumbent or other config.
#5
Senior Member
The type of bike matters also. A Wal-Mart dual suspension "mountain" bike with loose hubs and headset won't do so great either. "Touring" style bikes with long chainstays and relaxed head tube angles, fork rake, etc do the best. A halfway decent ATB well maintained make nice work horses. I'm just guessing the OP has a "normal" bike and not a recumbent or other config.
#8
Regarding stability, I have a 20" wheel folder, empty, steering was "twitchy", very maneuverable but don't take hands off steering, and on fast downhills, if I stood up, the whole bike could start a nasty shimmy, rapidly tipping left and right and amplifying. What made better? Unladen, sitting down or if standing to create more drag, clamping my thighs around the seat, my body acts as a mass-damper. Here's what's more interesting; A front rack and panniers with weight forward of the steering axis, calmed down the steering twitchiness (a deep research paper on stability of bikes confirmed that, see below). Adding a high rear rack (to fit full-size panniers), with a trunk bag on top full of tools (heavy), that helped damp out the shimmy, also mass damping effects.
"A bicycle can be self-stable without gyroscopic or caster effects":
https://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/researc...v34Revised.pdf
#9
I use a plastic milk crate, and I find that carrying anymore is asking for trouble.
I go shopping about three times per week, and have been doing so to a number of years now.
Oh, I live alone, so I only shop for one person.
Sorry I cannot as yet post a photo of my bike until I get 10 posts approval.
I go shopping about three times per week, and have been doing so to a number of years now.
Oh, I live alone, so I only shop for one person.
Sorry I cannot as yet post a photo of my bike until I get 10 posts approval.
#10
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#11
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#12
Prefers Cicero
Trial and error. Load it up and see how it handles and whether the struts look like they're bending. If a Dutch guy can carry his girlfriend on the handlebars, you're probably going to be okay with a bag or two full.