johnl314

Hi,
I can only afford one bike right now, but I need it for a couple purposes: one, hauling groceries every week, and two, going on long rides out of town. My current rack is pretty heavy and gets in the way of my seatpost bag, so I'm thinking of getting a new one.
I'd like to find a rack with a mounting system that would make it quick to remove the rack when I'm not carrying groceries, but it also needs to be strong enough to carry a pretty big load. I have eyelets to mount the rack in the back, but unscrewing it every time I want to remove the rack doesn't seem like a good solution.
Does anyone make a mounting system like this? Sorry if this is discussed elsewhere -- having trouble finding the right search query.
Thanks!

coldbike

About the only racks that are quick to remove are the seatpost mount kind. They are neither strong or light.Old man mountain racks are quite light and strong. Maybe they would be light enough for you to leave on the bike all the time. I tend to have racks on just about all my bikes since I often carry stuff and a pound or so of rack is not much of a penalty in the grand scheme of things.

memnoch_proxy

I presume that how much weight goes on a bike is really a matter of opinion. I have an Ibera aluminum rack that weighs about the same as my yellow jacket but probably less than the weight of my yellow jacket plus rain pants. I'm not a racer so I don't mind an empty rack.

threecarjam

If you're hauling groceries, you don't want a removable rack. Why not replace your seatpost bag with something that will either fit on top of your rack, or a Carradice saddlebag (which works fine and sits on top of my rack)? And if you want a new, light rack, Tubus makes a few in Ti and Stainless Steel that weigh less than a pound. Of course, for the money you pay for a nice, light rack and maybe a new bag, you could probably just buy a beater bike to use as your grocery getter.

You can have either removable or sturdy - and I agree, removing and reinstalling a rack on a weekly basis is a bad idea and seems like a really good way to mis-thread and strip your rack braze-ons.

fietsbob

Consider a bike trailer for the grocery foraging..

chucky

Attach it with wingnuts (the original quick release):

You might also need longer bolts, but not too long or else it'll take a lot of spinning to get the wingnuts off.

I've carried over 200 pounds on my steel rack attached this way (had to pedal out of saddle the whole way to keep the front wheel down), but I never ended up taking it off (not even once) because you never know when someone will offer you a pie or a tray of lasagna. Maybe I'll take it off now that I bought a lighter aluminum front rack (and save the heavy steel rear one for when I know I'll be carrying big loads).

Trailers scare me (no brakes!) and don't fit a lot of axles (you'd be surprised how many sizes there are) and dropouts (folding bikes, recumbents, etc).