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Pannier racks are a bit like septic tanks. We
tend to ignore them unless they mess up, at
which point their deficiencies rule our lives.
Most of us use our racks without any problem,
and we take them for granted. But some
cyclotourists have had racks that fail, racks
that wobble under normal loads, or racks that
weren’t made to hold the stuff we want, where
we want it. It’s easy to avoid these problems,
so I’ll explain how.
First of all, avoid those rear racks that clamp
only to the bike’s seat post. They can only hold
a few pounds, and even then, most of them
bob up and down unnervingly when you ride.
Those racks came to market only because so many bikes have been sold with a grave design
defect — no mounting points for conventional
racks. There are better ways to deal with
that defect, which I’ll describe below.
Second, unless you’re carrying a total load
of around 15 pounds or less, you should use a
combination of front and rear racks. It is somewhat counterintuitive that putting
weight on the bike’s steering would improve
the bike’s handling, but it most certainly
does. For proving this, we owe thanks to
Jim Blackburn, the since-retired founder of
Blackburn Designs.
In the early 1980s, Blackburn directed a series
of experiments mixing various combinations
of front and rear panniers, high and low
pannier mounting, and handlebar bags. Blackburn
and his test rider, Jim Gentes (who went
on to found Giro helmets), found that the
best-handling combination was high-mount
rear panniers, low-mount front panniers, and
a bare minimum of weight in a handlebar bag.
Because of this finding, Blackburn went on to
design and build his Lowrider front pannier
rack. (Sadly, the current Blackburn company
no longer makes the Lowrider, but most other
rack companies offer low-mount and highmount
front pannier racks.)
Adding front panniers does make your bike’s
steering feel slower, but in a way that feels benign
and easy to control. By contrast, adding
weight in a handlebar bag makes the bike resist
your control, so a handlebar bag should be
restricted to holding a few light items.
Blackburn also found that an acceptable
alternative way to configure your load was
to use high-mount front panniers instead of
low-mount. The bike still handles acceptably
this way. This is important to know because
off-road tourists generally need high-mount
panniers for the improved ground clearance.
In addition, a conventional high-mount pannier
rack has a small top shelf which can hold
more of your possessions. This is of particular
interest to tandem tourists, who have less
pannier and rack space per person than single
bike tourists.
How your rack attaches to the bike is usually
not an issue if you have a regular touring bike.
The conventional attachments are as follows:
• Rear racks are fairly well standardized to
attach to fender eyelets located near the dropouts,
and to brazed-on rack bosses on the upper
part of the seatstays. Clamps that circle
each seatstay can be used if your bike doesn’t
have seatstay rack bosses.
• Low-mount front racks attach to fender
eyelets and either (1) threaded bosses midway
up the front fork or (2) clamps that go around
the fork blade in lieu of the threaded bosses.
• High-mount front racks attach to fender
eyelets and the brake hole in your fork crown.
If your brake hole is made for a recessed Allen
bolt, your shop can get an adapter designed
by the late great Sheldon Brown and distributed
by Quality Bicycle Products.
For some riders, how a rack attaches to the
bike is a big issue. There are no rack eyelets on
full-suspension mountain bikes, whose designers
think only of racing and can’t imagine wanting
to actually go somewhere on such a beautiful
machine. Sad, because mountain bikes can
make great expedition touring steeds.
Millions of “hardtail” (no rear suspension)
mountain bikes have the same drawback.
These bikes, many of them in the campus
commuter price ranges, don’t have any
rack eyelets, for thoroughly stupid reasons
(it’s that racer wannabe thing).
Fortunately, there’s an easy answer for
these riders: get a rack that is made to attach
to these bikes in a way that doesn’t require
conventional rack mounts. For years,
Old Man Mountain had this business to itself;
lately, other rack companies have begun
to enter the fray. Different brands have different
ways of attaching the racks. The Old Man
Mountain racks attach to the brake bosses
and wheel dropouts. As bicycles without rack mounts keep
changing in design, the mountless rack companies
continue to adapt, and a bike you thought
was unrackable may not be, so don’t give up.
Good-quality racks are available in both
aluminum and steel. Is one material clearly
better than the other? Philosophers and metallurgists
could argue the point forever. Both
can make a strong, lightweight rack. Steel is
field-repairable, meaning the village blacksmith
in Nepal can at least try to fix your steel
rack. The importance of this is reduced by the
fact that good-quality racks rarely fail, and
when they do, worldwide express shipping
gets a rack sent anywhere in a short time.
Almost all panniers fit almost all racks.
Brand after brand uses a set of hooks that hold
the top of the pannier to the top of the rack,
and a bungee cord to snag a hook on the bottom
of the rack. Sometimes there are additional
straps to reduce pannier wobble. The parts
are simple enough that makeshift field repairs
and dollar-store bungee cords can work.
What makes one rack better than another? It
depends on your needs. A credit-card tourist
may be best served by a lighter weight rack.
(In today’s lexicon, the conventional Blackburn
rack would be an example of a lighter
weight rack.) Such a rack weighs as little as
possible and doesn’t cost much. High-quality steel racks may weigh slightly
more and some cost a lot more. But any discussion
of “steel does this and aluminum does
that” is blurred by the excellent reliability history
of some brands, notably Old Man Mountain.
The material matters less than how well
the rack was designed to use that material.
Differences in rack weights aren’t terribly interesting.
I weighed a motley collection of racks
and found the lightest front rack was an old
Blackburn, at 0.68 pounds; the heaviest front
rack, a Surly steel rack at 2.97 pounds. A lightweight
rear Blackburn rack was 0.99 pounds;
the heavy Surly rear rack was 2.46 pounds.
How worried should you be about rack
failure? Very little, and probably not at all.
For most of us, touring a week or two at a
time, a pair of Blackburn-class light racks is
very unlikely to fail. For expedition tourists
or rough-road mountain bike tourists, the
extra stress on the rack makes it cheap insurance to buy the “boutique” quality rack.
In racks, stiffness is your friend. A stiffer rack helps the bike handle more securely
and rattle less. Bruce Gordon racks add a nifty
stiffness feature: they have mounting bosses
for short-length fender stays, so your fenders
will be stiffer too. Unfortunately, there is
no standardized way to measure rack stiffness,
so I can’t tell you to look for a particular
specification.
When I go riding, it’s usually on a bike with
a rack. Even when you’re not touring, it’s nice
to know that you can bring home a nifty rare
book from a garage sale or a surprise dessert
item for your family. Far from being just a way
to lug camping gear, a rack is a way to make every
bike ride a little more fun.
RACKS YOU CAN BUY
Axiom - Canada’s Axiom offers front racks,
rear racks, $30 racks, $200 racks, suspension-compatible, no-rackmounts-
needed, aluminum, stainless steel, and, yes, carbon fiber!
Lifetime guarantee.
Blackburn (800-456-2355) Five models
of aluminum rear racks with lifetime warranties. The Blackburn
Lowrider is no longer offered.
Bruce Gordon (707-762-5601) Exceptionally
sturdy chromoly steel tubing front and rear racks from $165 to $209.
Delta (800-474-6615) Front racks, $45 to $50, mount on suspension or non-suspension forks. Rear racks for
light-duty use, for hardtail bikes with disc brakes, and for loaded
touring, $20 to $35.
Headland Cycling Equipment (800-683-2925). Racks made for Headland by Old Man Mountain,
$90 (front) and $95 (rear). Conventional rear rack, $50.
Jandd (760-597-9030) Aluminum rear racks, $40
to $73; front racks $53 to $73. Lifetime warranty.
Nitto (sold through Rivendell at www.rivbike.com, 800-345-3918) Different
styles of durable chromoly front ($60 to $135) and rear racks
($80 to $135) that can handle both light and expedition touring.
Old Man Mountain (888-439-6445)
Disc-brake- and suspension-compatible front and rear racks made
from aircraft-grade aluminum. From $45 to $145. Lifetime warranty.
Performance (800-727-2433) Aluminum
front and rear TransIt racks, $30 each.
Robert Beckman Designs ( 541-388-5146) Very high quality, handbuilt, adjustable
chromoly steel front and rear racks.
Surly - Offers height-adjustable, extremely
sturdy chromoly front and rear racks.
Topeak - Ten models of heavy-duty aluminum
rear racks, including models compatible with disc brakes.
Tubus (800-649-1763) Everything from front suspension
compatible racks, to low-mount front racks, to rear racks
ranging from the minimalist 11-ounce, $110 Fly to the heavy-duty $121,
22-ounce Cargo with its eye-popping 88-pound weight capacity. 
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by John Schubert