I heard a "twang" from the rear end of the bike when leaving for work this morning. Upon quick inspection in the dark I could detect nothing wrong so I carried on. While starting some yard work after I got home I noticed a few shiny washers in the driveway. Upon closer inspection I discovered that the left rear dropout mount had failed me and the bolt hadn't been able to hang on "by a thread", as it were. Luckily, even though my pannier hangs on the left side of the bike and the weight was therefore being placed on the side with no bolt, no damage seems to have been done to either the bike or the rack.

As per my earlier post I quickly discerned that my rear brake caliper was the culprit and I pondered how to deal with it. I considered attaching the rack to the same eyelet as my rear fender but decided that would lead to problems with bending the struts, and besides... there are two eyelets on either side and I should be able to use them!

I took off the caliper bracket, which doubles as the sliding dropout to maintain tension/alignment on my belt-drive/IGH bike. You can see here where the rack bolt was pressing up against the bracket:



I then carefully removed some of the aluminum to make room for my rack's mounting bolt:



I remounted the caliper, wheel, and rack and so far everything seems to be working. Ideally I'd like to mill some more material off of the dropout to give me more room for adjustment, but I'm loath to remove more lest it lose anymore of its structural integrity. In any case I have concluded that Norco really dropped the ball on this design and I plan to send a letter to them describing my dilemma in hopes that it will be rectified on subsequent models. My experience has certainly convinced me that an eccentric bottom bracket to maintain belt (or chain) tension is a far superior design than sliding dropouts or chain tensioners.