PaulRivers

Hi guys,

I just saw this in another thread and thought it looked really useful/cool/interesting (though I just heard about it and haven't tried it myself). I've seen several discussions online here about how to attempt to put a rack on the bike without rack mounts (typically full carbon road bikes, or recent aluminum road bikes) and never seen a truly satisfactory solution until this (if it works).

From this thread:
https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/510200-advice-new-bike.html#post8343883

I bring you! (well, actually, "hnsq" brings you) - the Seat Clamp with Rack Mounts:


https://www.treefortbikes.com/448_333...ck-Mounts.html

I've seen racks that attach to the bike through the rear wheel skewer (the part of the bike that's designed to hold a 150-300 lb rider) and attach at the top to the rear brake mount, like this one:
https://www.eriksbikeshop.com/ride/pr...ffset=2&s_id=0

The rear brake mount always seemed like the weak point of the system, to me (it's just a tiny bit of carbon fiber on my bike). Seemed like it would be ok for carrying a rain jacket and a change of clothes, but not real weight like a laptop or a bunch of touring gear. However, being able to attach the rack to the rear wheel skewer and the seat (which is also designed to handle a 150-300 lb rider) seems like a nearly perfect solution to me. (Other than getting them to add actual rack mounts, haha). Seems like if you didn't overclamp it to tight, it would even work with a carbon seat post. What do you think?

CACycling

Actually, the weight is supported by the axle in the dropouts. The skewer simply holds the dropout against the lock nut on the axle. I have seem racks that mount to the seat stays
https://www.niagaracycle.com/product_...oducts_id=1547
which, combined with the seat clamp could be a good solution if you did something to protect the carbon where the clamp is at.

hnsq

Just to throw my endorsement in...I have only been using this for about a week, but it only cost $13 and worked fine. I only have 15lbs or so of gear with me during the commute (plus my 155lbs) so I am not sure how it would hold up under a lot of weight, but it solved the problem for me. If my rack falls off the bike on the way home, I will let everyone know.

genec

I don't quite understand... if you are riding an ultralight bike... why in the world would you put a rack on it?

jdmitch

I have TWO of those clamps... bought from either Bens Cycle or Tree Fort (can't remember). They are f'ing slick. I've already installed on on my wifes bike, and will install one on mine soon. Both bikes have already have rack mounts HOWEVER they are horribly positioned and you can't get stays around the brakes because of the positioning. Those clamps, though, worked SWEEEEEEET

daven1986

ye the rack mounts on one of my bikes was poorly positioned so I had to bend the mounting arms around the cable, this would have worked very well!

CB HI

Just put an ultra light rack on it for an ultra light commuter.
Do you really need a 50 pound bike, just to carry one bag of groceries home?

carlton

Good answer.

PaulRivers

1. You bought the bike because it was the most most comfortable ride you could find while still having that fun race bike feeling (I did this).
2. You want to use your bike for multiple purposes - you take the rack off for racing, but also want to be able to tour on it or commute to work on it (like where I am we have security watching the parking lot and bike racks), or you ride the bike across town and want to be able to carry shoes for when you get there.
3. You want to be able to carry basic necessities while training for racing. Rain gear is very uncomfortable to wear while riding normally, but you don't want to be stuck 50 miles from home when it starts raining and it's 35 degrees out either because, you know, you don't want to get hypothermia.

Most people cannot afford to hire a team to follow them around in a car with the necessities every time they go out on a ride on their bike. ;-)

PaulRivers

Lol, awesome answer.

hnsq

I have two bikes (and since one is a cheap track bike for fun around the city) that leaves essentially one for commuting/long rides/whatever. If someone can give me the cash for an extra bike or two I will gladly take the rack off my current bike. PM me and we can set up a paypal transfer!

tatfiend 

Many CF bikes specifically state that nothing is to be clamped to the stays in which case the OP's device plus a rack whose support legs are clamped by the rear quick release, or a strictly seatpost mounted rack, are the only solutions which meet the frame makers listed restrictions.

The Civia Hyland normally comes with a carbon fork without front rack mounting bosses and a warning to not clamp to the front fork. Civia does offer a steel fork with rack mounts for those who want to mount a front rack.

genec

Good answers... I subscribe to the multiple bike theory. One for commuting/errands, one for fast fun rides, one for MTB... You get the idea.

PaulRivers

I don't think it would a good solution - the carbon is pretty thin on the stays, to. And the stays are designed to handle weight pushing down on them, not pulling back on the. At least the rear brake mount is designed to take weight there (when braking).

A mount to the seat post, on the other hand, has at least 2 advantages:
1. The seat post is designed to handle the weight and bumps from the rider sitting on it, and the frame is designed to handle the seat post being pushed or pulled backwards by a lot of weight.
2. If I did something wrong, I'd much rather break my seat post than break part of the frame. :-) A lot less expensive to replace the seat post... :-)

Hot Potato

I think its a nice fix. I am blessed with many bikes however, and can't see the need to ever rack my carbon road bike. But I still think its a nice fix.

I solved the storage issue for an ultra-light road bike with expandable seat wedge and a removable handlebar bag. I know, I can't bring home the groceries, but I can carry everything I need to survive all day on the road

I still think that is a nice fix.

zoltani

No offense meant, but do you really need a $1500+ bike just to lock up outside the grocery store. Seems like it would be better to get a beater grocery hauler.

As far as the guy who likes to take panniers along with him on long road rides, I guess it makes sense, but I also see how it then defeats the purpose of an ultra-light bike.

Schwinnrider

Why not just use a big saddlebag? A Carradice will mount to any saddle(Brooks work better but there are adaptors for other saddles) and can hold a TON of stuff. Plus it's easily removable.

zoltani

I've never ridden with a saddle bag, but i would say it would handle better for long road riding on a CF bike than panniers.

PaulRivers

Do you really need a 50 pound bike just to carry one bag of groceries home? I can't think of any possible reason whatsoever to buy a 2nd bike to do what my first bike is completely capable of doing.

zoltani

My point was that I would not want to lock a $$$$ CF bike anywhere for any amount of time.

Edit: Especially in a high theft area such as where i live.

PaulRivers

I had hoped this thread would just be informative for all the people (and every summer there's several) who start a thread asking "how can I put a bike rack on a bike without rack mounts?". I've done the research myself, and I figured it would help other people.

But since this thread has had a lot of the "Like OMG, I can't believe you're wearing that!" type replies, I'm going to try to clear them up. Then people will probably continue to post without the thread and ask 5 more times "Why would you put a rack on a lighweight bike", but hey, what can you do.

- Why would you put a rack on a lightweight bike?
Because WE DIDN'T BUY THE BIKE BECAUSE IT WAS LIGHTWEIGHT.

We bought it because it was comfortable. You could add 5 lbs to my bike - it's not going to make a difference. But my bike rides really, really, really smoothly over anything. I ride it over crushed limestone trail, over sidewalks (for a stretch), off curbs - there is 0% pain or discomfort for anything smaller than a curb.

Also, we bought it because it was fast. The speed difference between a $1500 bike and a $3000 bike? Negligible. Nothing. Zippo for us. The speed difference between a $500 bike and a $1500 bike? Noticeable. The difference between a fat tired "commuter" with a front shock, and our bike? Very noticeable. The thing is, we could be just as fast on a cheaper bike, but we could *not* be as fast and as comfortable at the same time. At least, I didn't find anything that would do that.

And we want something FUN TO RIDE! Those other 2 things help a lot with this. :-) But also, the bike fits well, handles well, leaves you feeling great after a ride.

So now that we've got this great bike, that's fast, comfortable, and fun to ride, you come along and and try to tell us we shouldn't ride it. That we should treat our bike like our grandmother treats her fine china where it sits in a case in the corner until that once time of the year that's a special occassion and gingerly eat off it, trying not to break it. Hell no!

We've got this great bike, and we're going to use it for everything we possibly can! We're cruising across town on it. We're doing a 100 mile ride on it. We're riding it 2 blocks to our neighbors. We're commuting to work on it. We're riding to the grocery store on it.

But we can't actually do half the stuff with that, for one reason. The bike doesn't have a rack to carry stuff. And you're trying to say we should spend hundreds of dollars on a second, crappy bike that we won't enjoy riding rather than putting a rack on the great bike we already own? That we should buy a crappy "beater" bike for commuting to work and spend 75% of our riding time on it, and end up only spending 25% of our biking time on the bike we actually like, like it's some sort luxury item that's to be thought about but not ridden? That we should deal with buying and storing an entire 2nd bike because adding a 1.5 pound rack on the back of our best bike is to much weight??? Can you be serious? Or what, because the serious, bib wearing, watch-my-diet-for-racing crowd thinks it doesn't "look cool" to have anything that's actually useful on a carbon frame?

Heck no! We didn't spend a couple of thousand dollars, 3 months of searching and test riding, 5 trips back to the store to pick up the bike and do the fitting, and 2 months of waiting to get a bike that's going to sit in the garage all the time. We're not going to let someone else's idea of "what's appropriate" to do with a racing bike (You should only race it! You shouldn't carry anything on it!) slow us down from enjoying it. We're not going to buy a 2nd "touring" bike so someone doesn't say "do you really need such a light bike to do touring with?". We're not going to let the fact that sometimes we carry a lot of stuff stop us from enjoying the speed of the bike when we're not carrying stuff. We're not going to buy several mediocre bikes, or spend thousands and thousands of dollars on extra good bikes just because someone doesn't think it's "appropriate" to pick up a half gallon of milk and a box of cereal on a carbon racing bike. We're not going to be afraid to go out biking when the weather looks iffy because we have no way to carry a rain jacket. And we're not going to drive across town when we could bike just because we don't want to wear road clipless shoes into a restaurant.

Heck no! We spend all this time, money and effort to get a bike that's fast AND comfortable AND fun. We're not going to let a 1.5 pound bike rack stop us from getting out there and enjoying biking! :-)

PaulRivers

P.S. To be fair, fear of theft *is* what keeps me from actually riding my bike to the grocery store. Not to work though, but if I worked in a moderate to high crime area (like downtown) and had to leave my bike outside it would be a different story.

I never said anything about putting panniers on the bike, though I would if I did any touring. It's my experience that a rear rack with a bag on top of the rack is the most efficient way to carry a few basic necessities like shoes or rain gear. Another pound or two on the bike doesn't make a big difference, but panniers that stick out to the side seem to add wind resistance at high speeds (I've tried it back and forth). A bag on top of the rack seems to have no negative effect. I imagine a handlebar bag would have even worse wind resistance issues, and sometimes I'm biking 40 miles with stuff (again, shoes and rain gear). I wasn't able to find a hangs-off-the-rear-of-the-seat bag that was big enough to carry shoes, and if I could I imagine it would be big enough to have that wind resistance issue.

Also, a lot of us (me in college, for sure) don't have room to store multiple bikes. Personally, at the moment, I own 2 bikes (well 3, but that's just because I haven't bothered getting rid of the 3rd one yet - it might make a handy don't-care-if-it-gets-stolen bike). I could easily see owning 3 though - you can't combine a road bike and a mountain bike and end up with a bike that's very good at doing either. There's 2 bikes, and my 3rd is a winter bike - here in Minnesota you'll run through an entire drivetrain every year if you bike commute in the winter on your mountain bike, not to mention frozen cables and deraillers, so I bought a dedicated winter bike with an internal hub, enclosed cable housing, etc etc that also doubles as a grocery store / coffee shop "not to fancy to leave locked up" bike in the summer. But I certainly wouldn't let a little thing like not putting a rack on my carbon bike force me into buying a whole 'nother bike.

Schwinnrider

Wow. Why don't you tell us how you really feel?

However, if you want to be able to carry stuff on your carbon bike, buy a SADDLEBAG.

https://www.carradice.co.uk/saddlebags/index.html

And since I assume you're not riding on a Brooks saddle, you'll need some bag loops. These are cheap, easily affordable for someone who owns a Civia Hyland and a carbon bike. LOL

https://www.velo-orange.com/vivabagloops.html

This combination will be lightweight, versatile, easily removable, and will hold enough stuff for you. As for the "wind resistance" issue---are you serious? The weight of the rack and rack top bag will slow you down more than the supposed wind resistance of a saddlebag. The solution you offered seems a bit ungainly. Attaching the rack to the rear QR? Seems it would be a PITA if you have a rear flat. Seriously, look at some of Carradice's offerings. Their traditional saddlebags are great, but there's the SQR line which is narrower and mounts to the seatpost. It is a far better solution than the kludge you're looking at.

hnsq

What about my problem? I have essentially one practical bike, a Cannondale Cross Disc. It does not have rack mounts, but I use the bike for everything from my daily commute to riding to my girlfriends apartment to the MS 150. I would love to own a pure road bike, but I am never going to race so I can't justify spending the cash, especially in this economy. I was going to buy a a bike more suited for commuting (Jamis Aurora was the top choice) but then I came across a great deal on a used Cannondale. Everything about it fit the bill except the lack of rack mounts. Saving a few hundred dollars is a big deal to me.

Would I love to own more bikes? Absolutely. Could I list specific bikes I want to buy right now? Yes. Do I need to save up for a down payment on a house rather than put thousands of dollars more into bikes. Yes to that as well.

linux_author