1989Pre 

I see the mounts for the fork-end eyelets, but is there a bolt/clamp kit that I can buy to create fork-blade mounts for forks with no braze-ons?

1989Pre 

Thanks. That's about as simple as can-be.

bulgie 

The one pictured at the top of the thread is a "Custom" lowrider (not sure if they meant that ironically, since it's far from custom). Those are meant for a hole that goes right through the blade and out the other side, the rack bolting to both the inside and outside of the blade. It might be possible to use something like the Tubus lowrider clamp to mount a Custom rack, but I don't immediately see how. Better to stick with the FL-1 style that uses a hoop over the front wheel, and attaches very well with the Tubus clamps.

Or just buy a Tubus Tara, a rack so superior in every way that I would never consider one of those wimpy flexy breakage-prone Blackburns. A Tara isn't traditional looking, but it is godlike functionally.

I loved the Bruce Gordon send-up of Blackburn, calling it "Rockburn" and saying it is stone-age tech.


Mark B

52telecaster

The Tara is really good

degan

Thats an early version of the Blackburn lowrider I believe. I have had a couple sets and from my recollection they had a slot to accommodate either a single bolt or U-bolt, depending on whether or not the fork has the lowrider braze-on. As far as solutions go, I believe there are three options. The worst would be to drill into your fork and add riv-nut braze-ons to accommodate the rack. A better option would be to find a fork for your frame that has lowrider braze-ons, but still somewhat of a pain to source a fork and switch thing over. What I would do is try to source a lowrider rack with attachment points that can accommodate a fork without the lowrider braze-ons. I'd make a post in the "ISO/for trade" thread, I'm sure someone will bite. As a matter of fact, I have a silver set of Blackburn lowriders that have the extra slots, PM me in interested in a trade. It's old and has the box, so it might have eBay value as well if you want to go that route.​​​​

bulgie 

Depends on what you mean by your first word, "that's". If you mean the rack in post #1, that's not an early one (FL-1), it's a later design, CL-1.
As the box itself says, it's for a fork with the special CL-1 braze-on only. Will not work on "regular" lowrider bosses, which are in the outer side of each blade, no pass-through to the inner side.

If you're referring to the FL-1, that can go on any fork I've ever seen, braze-on or not. If no braze-on, just use the included U-bolt, or the much better Tubus lowrider clamp.
To reiiterate: all FL-1 lowriders can take the U-bolt or a single-sided braze-on
All CL-1 ("Custom" lowriders) require the special, very rare, pass-through braze-on.

If you must use a CL-1, then I think you pretty much need to have a framebuilder add the special braze-ons. They're rare now but can be easily made with a lathe, or you can add normal "top hat" braze-ons (water bottle bosses) on both sides of each blade, in which case you use two screws, one from each side, rather than a single pass-through bolt and nut.

Mark B

gugie 

I think you're referring to these:


I used to get them from Nova Cycles, but they're going out of business. I had a couple of sets so I took measurements to Tony at Framebuilder Supply here in Portland. He had one of the machine shops he works with make some in stainless and non-stainless, so no longer rare.

Pompiere

I bought a set of Custom Low Rider racks by accident because they were cheap and I didn't see the mounts. The hardware was in the box and included the tubes and instructions for brazing them into the fork. A year or so later, I bought a Cannondale ST400 and it had the correct fork mounts, so all was well.

degan

​​​​​​Dang, that's what I get for browsing the forums on my little phone. I didn't notice the inner attachment points at all.

Pompiere

Here's the instruction sheet for the CL-1


Cannondale Custom Lowrider Installation sheet