Touring - Mounting rack without eyelets

Has anyone mounted a nashbar front rack on a fork without eyelets?

None of my local or non-local shops could get me a front rack that mounts on a fork without eyelets. Nor could they get me a fork with eyelets. One suggested Old Man Mountain's website. Since I wanted something cheap until I decide I like touring, I bought a front rack from Nashbar. The description of this product plainly states that it fits on virtually any fork, with or without braze-ons. The directions make no mention of how to mount it without eyelets. I called Nashbar and after a long wait, the tech came back with some fuzzy instructions that said to use both U-bolts as upper & lower. I tried that, 'cept I can't find any way to connect the lower u-bolt to the rack.

Any help here?

Did your rack come with 4 U-bolts. Are they all the same size?

I just installed a Blackburn original low rider rack, and i checked to see if I still had the instructions. Blackburn gave up on the low rider rack for some reason, I had some NOS. Unfortunately I don't have the instrucions, but I kept the brackets, and the lower ones are pieces of sheat metal bent into a "P" shape. The stem spreads apart, and the fork leg goes into the loop of the "P" leaving on able to bolt the rack through the stem.

What might work would be if you could source a really small U-bolt, just big enough to fit around the fork leg above the dropout. If you were lucky, this might allow one leg of the U-bolt to go right through the rack eyelet.

4 u-bolts, two large and two small. Nashbar replied to me today, it seems this rack does indeed require eyelets. They're updating the description. Hopefully Old Man Mountain can help me out. Its 43 degrees outside and its going to start another week of rain in a few days.

"None of my local or non-local shops could get me a front rack that mounts on a fork without eyelets."

Old Man Moutain makes racks just for that. They have a really slick mounting system that I've been really happy with.

www.oldmanmountain.com

I've had these racks on my bike for almost a year and they've been great. No problems. Easy to install.

That looks like the way I have to go. But the one week delay in my departure that this will cause will pretty much scrap the trip. Its getting cold here in the northeast, and there's a frightening tendency for it to rain for a week at a time.

Check out this thread also
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=128270&page=2

That is probably a stronger set-up than the eyelets. I was going to recomend the same thing, but I couldn't think of where he would find an extra long bolt - d'oh!

Just careful about how you configured that, it might sidestep the lawyer lips on your fork. Which could cause problems with some discs.