Commuting - Front racks

Cheers.

I'm looking for a low-rider front rack such as Blackburn's FL1


http://www.cecilwalker.com.au/graphics/products/fl1s.jpg

but I'd prefer it to have a "shelf" on top, just like the rear rack.

Two questions:
1) does anybody here know of such a rack?
2) does Blackburn have a web site?

I tried www.blackburn.com and www.blackburndesign.com. The first one seems to be unregistered, the other URL exists, but I cannot find any pages there.

Help! TIA,

--J

Such racks do exist but the only ones I have seen are made for 26 inch wheels.

Jandd makes a front rack that allows both high- and low-mount panniers, and also has a flat surface on top. It's called the Extreme Front Rack, browse around their site to find it: http://www.jandd.com/bikes.asp.

Here's a pic of a mounted rack: http://www.phred.org/~alex/pictures/bikes/trek520-front.jpg.

I know Blackburn does make a rack like you describe because I have one on my commuter. However, I haven't seen a new one in a long time, so they may have discontinued it. It's a solid rack, and I'll give it my personal recommendation.

Originally posted by Juha


2) does Blackburn have a web site?

I tried www.blackburn.com and www.blackburndesign.com. The first one seems to be unregistered, the other URL exists, but I cannot find any pages there.

Help! TIA,

--J

Blackburn is owned by Bell Sports www.bellsports.com (http://www.bellsports.com) (the helmet people). The Blackburn website www.blackburndesign.com has been down for a long time. I'm not sure what this means, but I don't think it bodes well.

Is this what you are looking for?

http://www.fogdog.com/product/index.jsp?productId=307411

does anybody here know of such a rack?

Yes, I have one that I bought on when touring through Holland in 1997 (the low rider I had before cracked (http://biketouring.eurotourism.net/album/images/1997_023.jpg)). It looks like this (http://biketouring.eurotourism.net/album/images/1997_040.jpg) and was made by Cordo (http://www.cordo.nl/). I have toured with it for more than 10000 kilometres and haven't had any problems.

Cordo's current racks can be found here (http://www.cordo.nl/cordo/produkt.php?id=34). Unfortunately, their entire web site is in Dutch and it doesn't look like they have an American distributor.

/Csson

OK, this is what you do:
You buy an ordinary top rack, and use it as the crossover on the blackburn rack. I've done it, works fine!

OK, folks, thanks for the swift and accurate responses. To summarize:

- no Blackburn rack site in the 'net (Bell's site only has helmets)
- Jandd and Cordo look promising, Cordo actually has a Finnish distributor. I've contacted both for more info.

One thing about posting URLs: when you put them at the end of a sentence, automatic parsing seems to consider the final period (.) of the sentence as a part of the URL, resulting to the good ole 404 error message. Some of the links above have this problem. Just remove the last "." from the URL manually.

Thanks once more!

--J

Originally posted by RegularGuy


Blackburn is owned by Bell Sports www.bellsports.com (http://www.bellsports.com) (the helmet people). The Blackburn website www.blackburndesign.com has been down for a long time. I'm not sure what this means, but I don't think it bodes well.

Well, I've been looking for racks and stuff on Ebay, and there's someone auctioning off a lot of Blackburn stuff (haven't seen any front racks, though.)

He says that the company's product line is being reduced, and several items seem to be being discontinued.

I have the Blackburn MTF-1 rack on a 700c hybrid and it fits fine with about 3/4 inch of clearance using 700x35 tires.

It's on closeout at REI, for a reasonable $16.93. That's where I got mine. I have also heard that they're being discontinued.

http://www.rei-outlet.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=9823822&prmenbr=8000

Seems like the right pannier might be okay but it's not really set up for "lowrider" style.

It's a short, stubby little thing, and it's hard to find a rack trunk that will fit on it because most rack trunks have straps spaced too far apart. I did eventually find a trunk that works: the Axiom Trekker. This will probably also be an issue with panniers.

It comes with clamps so you're okay if you don't have mid-fork eyelets, or if you have them but they're mysteriously not threaded, like mine.

A great rack, IMHO. Very convienent for a little extra storage.

Bruce Lange

I have the Blackburn MTF-1 rack on a 700c hybrid and it fits fine with about 3/4 inch of clearance using 700x35 tires.

It's on closeout at REI, for a reasonable $16.93. That's where I got mine. I have also heard that they're being discontinued.

http://www.rei-outlet.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=9823822&prmenbr=8000

Seems like the right pannier might be okay but it's not really set up for "lowrider" style.

It's a short, stubby little thing, and it's hard to find a rack trunk that will fit on it because most rack trunks have straps spaced too far apart. I did eventually find a trunk that works: the Axiom Trekker. This will probably also be an issue with panniers.

It comes with clamps so you're okay if you don't have mid-fork eyelets, or if you have them but they're mysteriously not threaded, like mine.

A great rack, IMHO. Very convienent for a little extra storage.

Bruce Lange