Originally Posted by
RichSPK
It makes sense to me that front racks would be better than rear racks for handling, but how are they when you want to slow the bike on a descent? I flipped a bike once when I tried to scrub off speed going down a long hill (with no luggage) and have been wary of that ever since. I now shift my weight back as far as possible when going down hills, but I'm not sure if that would help much with extra weight over the front axle.
OTOH I found that having a set of loaded front lowriders was the absolute best thing to have when descending gravel roads with loose sand at the bottom of the incline. I found plowing full speed into the sand was safe because the lowriders helped keep the wheel from slewing side to side. I didn't come to try it all or nothing the very first time. I was cautious and braked quite a bit, then found the wheel tracked much straighter than I anticipated. I kept increasing the speed on subsequent hills and found the more speed the better. It wasn't until I had slowed to <10 mph that the steering got squirrely. The weight centered over the front axle adds nothing to the tendency of flipping the bike in my experience.
And yes, keeping one's weight as much as possible over the rear wheel is what I would do in all such cases and I have 1 1/2" tires on 26" wheels.