Hello all, totally new to these forums but very impressed with the wealth of knowledge that I've seen so far....

Apologies if this has been posted before, but I can't seem to find any info.

I am currently converting a cheap rigid mountain bike for road use - I've added slicks and mudguards so far. I was looking to add a pannier rack to the bike and I came across an old style rack in my shed. It's in decent condition and seems very sturdy, the problem is, it's not designed to attach to the eyelets. It looks like the idea is to just remove the wheel nuts, loop the rack onto the axle and replace the nuts. The top part of the rack appears to attach to the seat post in the same sort of way.

The bike does not have QR wheels, so in principle, I think the whole thing would work fine, although I'm no expert on bikes at all. The thing is, I can't seem to find any info whatsoever about this type of rack on the internet - it's made me think that this method of fitting a rack is not safe or something, maybe if carrying a heavy load on the rack? Or is it just a case of the rack is really old and there are now more appropriate ways of fitting them?

So I suppose my main question to all the experts out there is simply, is this safe?

Thanks in advance http://www.bikeforums.net/images/smilies/smile.gif