Touring - Light touring on your carbon fiber road bike

Just wondering how many of you do any lightweight touring (small rear panniers only) on your carbon fiber road bike which might not have threaded stays for attaching a rear rack? Have you ever used one of the seat post attaching rear racks and/or rear trunks with small panniers or seat stay attachments for a rear rack. Just curious as to how you might have accomplished this.

Never mind, I should have done a better initial search:rolleyes:

This Carradice Saddlebag (http://www.carradice.co.uk/saddlebags/camper-longflap-saddlebag.shtml)has the capacity of a single pannier with no rack metalwork to weigh you down.

I have used an Old Man Mountain rack and Ortlieb Panniers to tour with a Trek 5200 carbon frame. Worked fine, although I thought it looked a little odd..

Scott

I use a Tubus Fly rear rack on my Lemond, a great set-up with a rackpack or panniers for light touring or heavy day-trips. The Fly weighs about 320 grams, mounts on the skewers and brake bridge and is rated for about 15 Kg.

I use a Tubus Fly rear rack on my Lemond, a great set-up with a rackpack or panniers for light touring or heavy day-trips. The Fly weighs about 320 grams, mounts on the skewers and brake bridge and is rated for about 15 Kg.


Same rig on my Ti roadie. Here it is at Milner Pass on Trail Ridge Road on a 4 day credit card tour this september.

Superlight touring is best during summer. You can go fully self-supported with no racks! Just a carradice longflap, a 9L+ capacity handlebar bag, and a bungee cord.

I haven't done any touring yet but I'm planning to do some lightweight touring in the future. I'm in the process in getting equipment. My bike doesn't have rack attachments so I got rack that attaches to the seat post. Here's what I have so far:

-Topeak RX BeamRack (380g) with side panels (185g) - attaches to the seat post, 15 lb. capacity
-Marmot Pounder Sleeping Bag - 1 lb 4 oz (claimed 1 lb)
-Eureka Spitfire 1 UL Tent - 2 lb 12 oz (claimed 2 lb 10 oz), not freestanding


Here's what I'm planning to get:

-Sleeping Pad - there are several I'm looking at in the 9-15 oz. range
-Compression Bag - 3-5 oz, must be lightweight, waterproof, and durable, this will attach to the rack and carry the sleeping bag and clothes

Titanium! You need a titanium rack for that!

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/cid/TOSLN7YVUIAVB9BSDH2WQ1BAWCU278FH/product-Tubus-Tubus-Airy-Titanium-rear-carrier-197g!!-13955.htm

I had a similar type bike when I got into touring. I started out with a Bob trailer and quickly moved to a Burley Nomad Trailer. When loaded the Bob trailer would flex my rear triangle. I felt this wasn't good for my bike or my life. On fast downhills the bike would start oscillating back and forth. The Nomad doesn't load up your triangle nearly as much due to its two wheeled design and that a significant portion of the trailer load is over the rear axles. Fast forward a number of years and I now run a bike touring company, www.wildheartcycling.com (http://www.wildheartcycling.com), where we use the Burley Nomad Trailers on our tours. Customers easily learn to pull the trailer and like the ease of packing the trailer. When we take a rest day its nice to leave the trailer at the campsite and go explore unencumbered. I've toured with both panniers and trailers and they both have their advantages. The bottom line for me it's all good. I just love the freedom of touring.

http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2008/road/pilot/pilot50/

This is why I'm asking, as a friend will be tagging along next time on this beauty. I'm wondering if the rear triangle will be stiff enough to hold a rack and some light gear. Should be able to handle it right? Carbon should be stiffer but wonder if durability will suffer. Oh and I already told him to get a new rear wheel with a greater spoke count.

This is why I'm asking, as a friend will be tagging along next time on this beauty. I'm wondering if the rear triangle will be stiff enough to hold a rack and some light gear....
How long of a trip, and how much gear? Camping or credit card tour?

No more than a week and no camping, just a couple of moderate panniers on rear.

You should be fine. I use to commute on that same bike and while it wasn't ideal and I finally switched to a more appropriate commuter, it will work ok for what you're wanting to do. The right rack is key. NEVER use one of those seat post racks and especially not on a carbon seat post. Disaster waiting to happen. Get that Old Man Mountain rack that connects to the quick release. Should work fine. Wouldn't put no more than about 25 pounds on it though.

Titanium! You need a titanium rack for that!

http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/cid/TOSLN7YVUIAVB9BSDH2WQ1BAWCU278FH/product-Tubus-Tubus-Airy-Titanium-rear-carrier-197g!!-13955.htm

If that had been available in the US I would so own one. :o

You should be fine. I use to commute on that same bike and while it wasn't ideal and I finally switched to a more appropriate commuter, it will work ok for what you're wanting to do. The right rack is key. NEVER use one of those seat post racks and especially not on a carbon seat post. Disaster waiting to happen. Get that Old Man Mountain rack that connects to the quick release. Should work fine. Wouldn't put no more than about 25 pounds on it though.


You will notice the bike does have have threaded holes on the rear triangle in which to mount a standard type of rack without using an Old Man axle mounted rack. Although you would have to mount the supports to the seat post collar.

Yeah, it's not ideal that's for sure. I "engineered" a mounting strap for the top portion of the rack using a preforated (sp) strap that went around the seat post and a piece of thick rubber hose cut the size of the strap to go around the seat post to protect it. Worked fine, looked like crap. They do make racks that have a mount that connects to the brake bridge. My Trek Interchange rack does that. You do have mounts at the drop outs right? I remember using them for my Pilot.

Edit: Something like this: http://www.bikeparts.com/pimage/BPC114972.jpg

I've got an older Trek with carbon tubes and aluminum stays. I do have eyelets at the dropouts, but the first rack I bought had to be jury-rigged to be supported by the seat tube in front, since there were no cantilever bosses and the geometry put the front of the rack within millimeters of the seat stays, where they were too far apart to properly mount the rack. I recently bought a blackburn ex-1 rack for it and used the provided p-clamps to securely mount it to the seat stays. I guess it much be slightly shorter than my first no-name rack.

Not sure if this is totally relevant, since I've got eyelets and aluminum stays, but I think the idea is that since carbon bikes are racing bikes, their aggressive geometry can sometimes be tough to fit racks to. Not impossible though. With a little time and the right tools, anything can be done. Admittedly, it looks funny...

One nice thing I noticed about this bike is that it does have the threaded mounts at the drop outs and it uses long reach brakes and the bike will accept much larger tires like a 700 x 28 or maybe even 32 width which will be better for carrying a load.

We ( my family ) have often toured on light road bikes. I have put racks successfully on all sorts of bikes. We much prefer rear racks to most other alternatives. I have put racks on Trek carbon 5200 and 5220, LeMond Victoire, Trek Madone, Santana Beyond tandem, Co-motion tandem, and a lot more kinds of bikes. I go back so far that I made a rear rack with triangulated stays before Blackburn made its first rack. ( I got golf clubs at Goodwill, cut their superlight shafts, brazed them onto little steel plates to attach at the dropouts and the Pletcher's taillight hole. Worked for 30 years. ) If you don't remember what a Pletcher rack was, you did not miss much. They wobbled and were weak and had a rat-trap top. The most difficult rack installation I have ever done was a Ritchey that had those dumb dropouts with the curved top that looks like it's designed to keep the rain off your skewers, or to prevent anything from attaching to the skewers.

I currently use Tubus racks, which are strong and lightweight. They sell various fitting pieces. The pieces that mount them onto the skewers work very well on road bikes like the LeMonds, that have no threaded holes, but it is a nuisance when you have to remove the rear wheel, as to repair a flat, because you also must remove the rack and skewer. They are, however, quite strong, but we go light. Beware: on the dropouts like the Ritchey mentioned above, you cannot use the skewer mounting trick because the shroud over the dropouts gets in the way. You can grind part of the shroud off ( it has little function back there, but I hate to do it anyway ), braze eyelets on top of the shroud, or clamp onto the seat stays IF they aren't carbon fiber. I would not do that on a carbon rear end, though it might work.

For carbon fastback bikes I get stainless strapping ( used for chimney mounts for antennas, very light and more than strong enough, pliable and drillable ) and custom-fit a wide band around the carbon stay. This works awesome on the Trek carbon bikes, though they have many shapes in the rear and I have not fit all of them. For these, use a single-stay rear rack like the Tubus Fly... or Tubus Airy if you have lots of money. The struts on the Airy are too short for most bikes, so beware. You can buy T-304 stainless steel tubing from here: http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?id=312&step=2&top_cat=1
It is remarkably ductile but still strong and rustproof. You can make all sorts of custom struts from it, and they are lighter and stronger than the ones that come with your rack. Just crush the end in a vise, center punch and drill a hole, file off the burrs. It works better than anything I know of, even bends if you have a good tubing bender. ( It is too strong for the cheaper tubing benders intended for copper tube. It will break the bender, rather than bend. ) If you are good with a torch you could probably make an entire rack. I have also attached rack struts to the seat post binder bolt if the size of the bike is appropriate. I have never attached to double carbon stays, but if you are careful with the stainless steel above it should work just fine. The horizontal load delivered to rack struts at the seat tube is not huge, just be sure not to crush the seat stays while clamping on.

While you are at it, avoid most panniers sold today, which weigh twice as much as you need. Ortlieb-style panniers tend to weigh more than the rack itself. Put your stuff in plastic bags when it rains instead. Ditto for the heavy canvas bags... you paid thousands for a light bike, don't hang heavy canvas on it. I replace the inner plastic stiffeners on panniers with aluminum alloy, lighter and stiffer. I skip handlebar bags now because the mounting gizmos weigh too much, though the bags don't. Cubic inches per ounce is not enough.

We have had stock lightweight wheels hold up fine with touring loads, even in mountains and on tandems. But we are not heavy people ( I weight 150 pounds ), carry less than 20 pounds, and avoid potholes. Stiffer rims work better, however. Touring is more fun on better roads, by and large, anyway!

Carradice Camper long flap saddle bag will haul quite a bit of gear,
add a handlebar bag and that should do it.

No more than a week and no camping, just a couple of moderate panniers on rear.

Saw a woman riding a carbon bike with a very nice seatpost mounted rack and small panniers (Topek). Need an Al seatpost to mount a rack. You can also get a small handle bar bag as well. Looked pretty slick. She said she bought is at REI.

A Tubus Airy rear rack with a Lone Peak Parleys Summit pannier weighs half a pound less than a Carradice Camper long flap saddle bag ( 920g according to Peter White ), carry more, are easier to get into and detach to carry with you, slosh a lot less when you stand up, allow you to strap extra stuff on top of the rack if you need to ( like an entire grocery bag to carry back to your hotel ), allow you on sturdier trips to carry a second pannier, or a pair of larger panniers, or a small tent and sleeping bag, and do not bounce when you go over bumps.

What exactly are the virtues of heavy cotton canvas bags aside from being traditional ? You will not see a Pacific Crest through hiker backpacking with a cotton canvas backpack.

I have not seen a seatpost rack that works well, though I have not tried all of them. They have to be built heavy because they are fundamentally beams instead of struts. They have a habit of getting knocked sideways if you hit a bump on a corner, and then they are dangerously unbalanced. They also have problems if you stand up unless their load is tiny. I abandoned them after a while.

tandemTourRace,

Welcome, your comments are appreciated, but please note you responded to a 3-year-old thread, which kind of makes the whole conversation a little weird. Please do start a new thread as needed.

I hope you post a picture in the Pictures of your Loaded Rigs sticky to show us your bike(s)!

thanks! :)