dminden

I'm considering buying a Tubus Logo Evo stainless steel vs a Nitto Campee silver, which has low rider pannier racks. This is mostly for touring, though I do shop with the bike most of the time in town. The Tubus is lighter, but the bags ride higher. The pannier racks on the Nitto are removable. Any opinions?

veganbikes

I do love Nitto, they make quality stuff no doubt but Tubus all the way. They are a touring rack company they really care and understand touring through and through.

Tourist in MSN

My only Nitto rack is much lighter duty than the one you are looking at, so can't comment on that.

I am extremely happy with my non-stainless black painted Logo EVO that I got over a decade ago. I only use the Logo for touring, it is an outstanding pannier rack. But for riding around home, I prefer a rack with wider platform on top, thus I use other racks for day to day use when not touring.

I was unaware they make one in stainless. Mine is painted black. I use black nail polish to touch up any wear spots.

If you plan to use a rack top bag, that narrow top may be a consideration.
https://ortliebusa.com/product/logo-evo/
https://www.tubus.com/fileadmin/user...Evo_TZ_2.0.pdf

What kind of bike is this going on? Some of the newer frames have moved the pannier mounting holes up higher. The logo works well with the rack mounts down low.

cyccommute 

If you are considering lowriders on the rear, I would suggest you read this article from when lowrider racks became available in the US. TL;DR version: Jim Blackburn doesn’t recommend them for the rear. Front, yes. Front and rear, no.

indyfabz

Link to the Nitto?

LeeG

Logo is great. I also have a Cargo Classic with another set of lower horizontal tubes brazed on. In some applications the clearence between the rear tire and the strut hardware under the rack can be tight in which case you can use those flat ss straps common to most other rear racks.

gauvins

Perhaps take a look at Tumbleweed's. They sport bottle cage mounts so you can fit anything cages.

Pratt

slightly OT, but I have a set of Bruce Gordon racks. They are made of Chrome-Moly tubing and work great, and are quite light, and very durable. My question is why is nobody making something similar today?

Yan 

We use this one on my wife's bike. It's lighter and cheaper than Tubus, and works with its own line of quick release rack-top trunk accessories.

We are currently cycling around the world and haven't had a problem with this rack after 11 months. I will say, the welding workmanship on the Racktime is far inferior to Tubus, which is a bit disappointing despite apparently not affecting the actual strength.

https://www.racktime.com/en/racktime...ightit-20-tour

Atlas Shrugged

What in particular are other rack manufacturers not making. If it is the Chrome-Moly you are referencing there is nothing special about this as it was mainly used as marketing hype BITD, almost every time steel is used on a decent quality product it will be Chrome-Moly. Tubus racks use 25crMo4 and I am sure other better quality racks use similar quality of metals. There untold numbers of premium rack builders currently.

25CrMo4 is a Cr and Mo alloyed quench and tempering steel with low carbon content. The steel combine high strength with high toughness.

veganbikes

I feel like this was gone into not that long ago but Racktime is owned by Tubus but Racktime is their aluminum city rack (hence the different welds and look of inferior workmanship which is not really the case minus the Shine rack which has a poorly designed light at the back being the only drawback). Great stuff with excellent accessories that are cross compatible with MIK accessories with a different bottom plate.

Aushiker

I cannot comment on either rack directly but as a long-time Tubus user, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase another one again should the need arise. Mine have travelled thousands of kilometres and have been overloaded more time that I care to remember and continue to be in good nick.

indyfabz

I have the Nitto Big front and rear racks. Nickel plated CrMo. Not sure if they are made anymore, but I saw some available online a while back. Got mine from Riv back in 2011. They still look nearly brand new despite touring and commuting. I’ve carried large bundles of firewood on them.

Tourist in MSN

I have no complaints about my Racktime Addit rack welding. That rack is quite different in design than the one that Yan cited. My Addit is at this link:
https://www.racktime.com/en/racktime...-product/addit

That said, I also use a Tubus Logo EVO which I mentioned above that I was very happy with. I use the Logo EVO on my medium and heavy touring bikes. The Addit has a lower weight rating and I use that on my light touring bike.

Both the Logo EVO and the Addit are outstanding pannier racks.

veganbikes

Agreed! I have a Racktime I-Valo Tour rack on a bike and it is great and another Racktime tour rack (though not I-Valo) on another bike. They are great racks and the welding is fine but to my point earlier they can seem to "look worse" compared to a steel weld which is usually less chunky and those who may not know that RT is aluminum and not steel like many of the Tubus racks.

Duragrouch

I read the article. I'm not sure lowrider rear now means the same as what is indicated as tested. My rear rack has a lower tier for the panniers that is maybe 2" or slightly more below the top platform, and this greatly improves putting the trunk bag on and off, as well as less interference between the trunk side pockets and the rear pannier top flap/pocket. This is a full-size rear rack, mounted on a 20" wheel bike so sits about 3" lower overall, and thus the panniers about 5" lower overall. The rack platform is about 5" higher than it needs to be for tire clearance, but this helps keep the big panniers high enough to clear tall curbs when pedaling near them, but it also means the trunk bag (heavy, full of tools and spares) sits high for the bike. The rear panniers are both completely behind the rear axle, to provide pedaling heel clearance. This sounds contrary to Blackburn's recommendations, but this is a stable setup, even when heavily loaded. Ironically, it's a Blackburn rack, TRX-2, I chose it specifically for the far-aft pannier position, and lower tier setup. However, in the article, Blackburn doesn't show the lowrider rear rack, just the standard rear rack (centered over the axle), and mentions "frame whip" with the panniers that far aft, but that may be due to insufficient rack lateral rigidity and not the mass position with respect to the bike overall. My rear rack and stays are rigid laterally. My front panniers hang from a "sixer" front brakepost rack, and thus, due to the small (20" wheel) fork length, the panniers end up being "lowriders" even without a proper lowrider rack. Again, stable setup.

Tourist in MSN

The point of the article was assessing different locations for pannier center of gravity placement with the limitation of adequate heel clearance, and how that may impact handling. They compared a very high center of gravity where the bottom of the pannier was far above the axle against another setup with the center of gravity at the axle height.

Both setups that were compared are not really practical by current standards. Generally today the bottoms of the panniers are at about axle height, or higher. Nobody puts panniers so low that the pannier could impair derailleur function. Current racks and panniers are designed to be in between those two extremes that they described. (I am not considering the small bike packing racks for this discussion.)

And their testing was done on full size bikes in an era where almost all bikes were steel framed with smaller diameter tubing that made the frames quite flexible compared to today standards for tubing diameter. My rando bike has a frame very much like those older frames, and when I have a bag or two of groceries on that rear rack, it really impairs the handling, which is why that frame was never sold as a good frame for load carrying.

And they certainly are not practical to compare to your small wheel folding bike, which I assume has an aluminum frame and has all the weight well aft of the rear axle.

cyccommute 

Here’s what the Nitto Campee looks like. The rack is using low low-riders like those described in the Blackburn article. The rails aren’t just a few inches from the top of the rack like you might find on some of the Tubus racks.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for posting. I have never seen a rack like that and the one pictured. I am quite sure that would be a heel strike problem for me.

From their diagrams, they also have the bottoms angling outwards so that the derailleur has adequate clearance to function, which means it could be quite wide in back.

robow

*NITTO* campee rear rack (silver)

IMO, At $206, a solution in search of a problem (that doesn't exist)

indyfabz

I was wondering if that was what the OP was talking about. IIRC, it was/is known as the 33 or 23 or something like that.

Have never understood it, especially with what appears to be a relatively small platform.

Duragrouch

Wow, that Nitto Campo lowrider really is low! I'd be less concerned about the mass location, and more concerned that the section aft would wag laterally about the relatively short span on the rack main verticals.

My folder frame (monobeam) is the early Dahon Speed so 4130 chrome moly steel, but it's plenty rigid, even in torsion when climbing with load, that main ovalized beam contains a large torsional section modulus. I've added an improvised "Deltech", but that stiffens it only in longitudinal bending, not torsion.

My rear pannier is just low enough to possibly affect rear derailleur function, except it's all behind the rear axle so doesn't (even though the derailleur switched from Dahon compact forward of the axle to conventional mount aft of the axle), and, is spaced out an inch at the lower mount because the rack is designed for discs (my bike has none, and I would have preferred the non-disc rack so no cantilevered load at the lower mount, but the disc version was all that was left, on clearance sale at Nashbar).

While high rear load (like my heavy trunk bag) might have a mass-damping effect for speed wobble, the pannier load being lower does reduce noticeably the rocking inertia when climbing out of the saddle, I have more leverage on it, especially critical if a long handlebar riser (mine is the old non-telescoping steel riser, so more rigid than the telescoping aluminum riser that was later).

Tourist in MSN

Very good point on the small platform.

With my Tubus Logo EVO or Racktime Addit the platforms are quite narrow, but those racks have the tops of my panniers up higher, thus anything that is wide sits on top of the panniers instead of on top of the rack.

But the Nitto rack with the low pannier mounting would need to have a wide enough platform to support anything on top in back.

To make my point, photo below shows my Racktime Addit rack is lower than the tops of the panniers, the rack top bag sits on the panniers, not the rack. I have a sheet of coroplast in the bag to stiffen it, thus it does not sag in the middle. In the photo you can just barely see a gap between rack and rack top bag.



It is very hard to see in my photo above, but my derailleur would hit my pannier when in higher gears if my pannier was several inches lower. I believe that is the reason that the Nitto rack has the pannier mounts spread out that wide at the bottoms of the pannier supports.

One thing I like about the Logo EVO or the Addit racks is that the racks are narrow. Not wide like the Surly rack. That said, for around town use near home, I like a wide platform, but not for touring.

My Logo EVO in the photo below, on that trip I used a smaller rack top bag. On that trip we anticipated not more than three days between grocery stores, thus a lot less volume was needed for luggage. At end of trip the rack top bag was folded up and stowed in a pannier.



In the above example with the Logo EVO, having higher panniers on each side of the rack top helped keep the rack top bag centered, in this case the rack top bag sat on the rack top but was in a valley between the higher panniers. On the Nitto rack, that side support with the panniers would be lacking.

Tandem Tom

Hey Tourist! Enjoy your pics showing the ACA triangle. We are getting ready to ride from Ohio to Tacoma and I just "pressed & flattened " ours!

indyfabz

Heh. I was recently cleaning out my basement and found one from my 2010 Cycle Vermont tour. It needs a good pressing.