Originally Posted by
Grand Bois
Avoid the new Blackburns with two struts instead of the usual three. They are too flimsy to be of any use.
I feel the same way about the Pletscher above.
Yes, I've tried both of them.
+1
The Pletscher is a great rack if you aren't carrying much as they lack lateral stiffness and a proper touring rack will usually have triple stays to provide better support and add stiffness, especially if they are made of aluminium.
MEC in Canada offers a rather decent, triple stay rack that sells for $15.00... these will handle light to medium loads and for heavily loaded touring one would want something better.
Steel is a different animal... it does not suffer from the same fatigue issues that aluminium does and because of tubing dynamics a steel rack is not going to weigh much more and can often weigh less than a comparable aluminium rack because the tubes can be thinner and lighter for the same diameter. The Filzer rack that came off my Pugsley weighed 200 grams more than the rack I built and was flimsy in comparison.
One caveat is that a really nice steel rack will probably cost quite a bit more than an aluminium one... many are custom made and many of the mass produced ones tend to be of very poor quality which is true for many things.