Originally Posted by
NomadNW
Actually, upon closer inspection, I found that there are holes in the bottom of the rear frame. My initial inspection was of only one side of the bike, which had a plastic thingie plugging the hole on that side. The other side had no plastic thingie. So it looks like I can attach a rack just like 10 Wheels did to his Allez.
So now my question is, how do I avoid heel strike against the rear panniers when I get them?
@ 10 Wheels: what brand of rack and panniers did you use on your '03 Allez, and did you have any heel strike issues with your panniers?
$.02 is to work with the road bike nature of the bike and not try and turn it into a heavy rear wheel load carrier pushing weight back to clear heels.
For the rear rack get a basic cheap rack that mounts down close to the tire doing double duty as a fender and put a small duffle bags worth of stuff on the rack, no panniers. Moving forward if there's room on the frame or under a the top tube put a small frame bag leaving access to bottles clear. If frame isn't big enough move gear forward onto a mini front rack holding a small dry bag, less than 5 lbs worth. If you absolutely have to have panniers get smaller ones and put them on low riders.