Originally Posted by
donalson
yup another one...
I'm getting close to buying my racks for a week long tour on the katy trail in MO... I'm riding a 700c Surly Disc trucker.
I'd like to stay around $100 front and back so that kicks out some of the higher end racks.
at the moment up front I'm looking at the Salsa Down Under Rack up front and out back a Blackburn TRX-1 Ultimate Touring Rack.
could I go better for the money? reviews seem good on both but wanted some feedback from actual touring riders
thanks
mark
There are a bunch of them out there. The rear racks are easy to find and just about any of them work. My personal preference is to use ones that have mounting points more like a Tubus than a Blackburn. The flat metal rack stay type mounts on the Blackburn don't allow for too much side-to-side adjustment of the rack stays while racks with round upper stays are more adjustable. For the Blackburn type racks, you can go with Blackburn, Delta, Topeak, Avenir, Planet Bike Eco rack and a bunch of others. The round type stays come on Tubus (of course), Planet Bike K.O.K.O., Axiom, Racktime and others. The KOKO and Axiom racks are good inexpensive racks.
There are fewer front racks. The Salsa looks okay but for $25 to $40 more, you can get a Tubus Tara which, in my opinion, puts the others to shame.