Frenzen

How useful are pizza racks for touring, lets say I want to get this one https://www.specialized.com/us/en/pizza-rack/p/172406
Is it practical at all, I know I have seen other pizza racks like Wald Pizza RACK



Not sure how useful they are because some people also put bags on their drop bars and it might overlap with the pizza rack or be a better alternative. I am talking about the general use overall, or are there better options instead of pizza racks?

Tourist in MSN

There are better options.

No new photos have been posted on this website for several years, but this website has hundreds of photos of touring bikes over the past couple of decades. These however are biased towards the heavy touring category, as these photos are often from epic long tours. If you are looking for ideas, spend some time there.
https://www.pbase.com/canyonlands/fullyloaded

The category of bikepacking which is using no or minimalist racks is a growing trend. These two links are from a race, but people that are bikepacking as individuals that are not racing or part of an event use very similar gear. More ideas here:
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2022-t...e-rigs-part-1/
https://bikepacking.com/bikes/2022-t...e-rigs-part-2/

This is a free magazine, no new issues since covid but it is still reasonably current, you can look at older issues to see some photos:
https://www.bicycletraveler.bicyclingaroundtheworld.nl/

mdarnton

How about a pizza/lowrider combo?
https://pelagobicycles.com/shop/equi...racks-baskets/
Pick a rack or basket, then add their lowrider leg set.

veganbikes

The Spesh Pizza Rack is a fine rack and can hold quite a bit of stuff. Our shop owner had one and would load up the top and have two of the gravel Ortliebs underneath with a folding saw scabbard mounted to it as well.

It depends on what you need of it though. Most touring cyclists traditionally would go for a lowrider rack like as a Tubus Duo or Tara or might just stick with a smaller rando rack but it all depends on what you need and what you are carrying.

Tourist in MSN

On one of my bikes I have a tiny little rack above the front wheel and a Tubus Ergo (discontinued) low rider rack for panniers. The small top rack was made by Nashbar and fit to the canti brake posts. Sunlite also made a rack similar to the Nashbar rack.

In the photo I have my Polartec vest (orange) bundled up and strapped to the top rack.




My point is that in some cases you can have both low rider racks and a top rack. And some manufacturers make a front rack that provides both.

staehpj1

Utility of these would vary with what you were carrying and how you wanted to carry it. I have a harder time imagining a case of using the Wald when touring, but who knows it may suits someones needs. At a glance the specialized looks a bit more reasonable to me.

str

too small, has to be BIGGER!

mstateglfr 

O would rather have a Wald 137 or 139 basket on top of a front rack that use a pizza rack.
You can carry a bunch and it's much easier to load/unload.

tcs

Hmm. When not touring, will you in fact use your front rack to transport pizzas?

The basketpacking crowd (yes, that's a thing) have bags specifically made to fit the 137 & 139. Over on dit I see a list of some 20 different available bags for the Wald 137. Useable for touring & arguably more convenient than panniers for life use when not touring.




Then there are porteur bags, some of which are truly gargantuan.



Useful for touring? Sure, you know, depending on what you want out of life.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

mstateglfr 

Yeah, since basket pics are now in the chat, below is a pic of my commute/tour bike with a 139 basket plus Swift Motherloaf bag on the front.


The 139 basket is massive, but I had to get it because a 137 basket and bag are too small for my laptop to fit without being angled and taking up a lot of bag room.
If Wald made a 138 basket, that would be perfect.

Anyways, its just a cheap wire basket that is ziptied to the platform of a JANDD Extreme Front Rack.
I looked for about a year and a half at various racks- porteur, demi-porteur, pizza, etc to put on the front because I wanted to lighten the overall carrying system. A pizza/porteur rack bag from ILE or OuterShell would have been used since they direct mount to the racks. Ultimately though, the bag I got was new and half off, and I already had the front rack so I just sucked it up and bought the basket. Admittedly, it is really versatile to have.

Tourist in MSN

Back to the topic of a big pizza rack for touring, the reason that my previous post included links to photo galleries is that virtually nobody on a tour wants to put most of their weight that high in front of the steering axis mounted on a fork. For touring, virtually everybody wants their weight elsewhere. And there are lots of options for elsewhere.

Occasionally you see vintage photos of bikes like that in France with large baskets, but those frames were designed with low trail. I am largely ignorant of frame design issues so I will not elaborate further, if I tried I would probably get it wrong.

My point is that with a bike that has touring geometry, lower center of gravity is desired. Minimizing weight in front of the steering axis is also desired.

***

I readily admit that I violate my own advice here, I use a big heavy handlebar bag when touring, but that has nowhere near the capacity of a big basket or the weight of a loaded big basket. I also mount my handlebar bag as close to the steering axis as possible without using a custom bracket. Photo is from my tour last month.



Handlebar bag is mounted on a second stem, I used an adjustable stem to enable lowering it and getting it closer to the steerer tube to minimize how high and how far forward the center of gravity is.

I can see a laptop in a basket for commuting, but that is not touring. And the OP asked about that basket on the touring forum.

Pratt

If I were going to carry pizza on tour, I think I would want a rack with a front rail to keep it from sliding out when braking.

Ron Damon

• Mounted on fork, strike one.
• Mounted high, strike two.
• Wide ergo long moment-arm, strike three.

Yer out!

Honestly, the real question is, is there anything actually worse, not better? 😉

indyfabz

They sure do.

I wouldn't try this with a pizza rack. (The store at that particular campground has since been moved to make carrying wood to many sites practical.)

mstateglfr 

What is this even in response to? And what does the 3rd bullet mean?

Ron Damon

Read the OP.
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