Originally Posted by
staehpj1
Seriously? It sounds like you want to buy the Tubus and are really reaching to rationalize it. It is just a rack. If you have a failure buy another rack, any other brand of fairly decent rack that happens to be available where you are and keep riding. If the failed rack is an inexpensive one you could just dispose of it. Otherwise mail/ship it home. Even with a $50 rack it is very unlikely that you will ever need to worry about this.
The thing is that unless you are using a really flimsy rack likelyhood of a failure is pretty low. There are numerous reasonably priced brands/models of racks many under $50 that are highly unlikely to give you any trouble. If you really want the Tubus buy it (joy of ownership?). It is a super nice rack and won't let you down. If you just want a decent rack that does the job reliably without emptying your wallet buy a blackburn, axiom, or similar.
If you were expecting to really push the weight limits of the rack going with the Tubus would gain a bit more merit, but you'd be getting into territory where you'd be carrying enough to make travel pretty joyless IMO.
I am not trying to rationalize anything. I came here seeking advice and I'm willing to listen. I simply stated that Tubus seemed to be a popular choice, research I've done online seems to flow with that and I like the mobile guarantee.
That said I don't have experience with racks (aside from riding with the Planet Bike rack I have and testing with a bit of weight in my panniers) - particularly in the reliability of rack systems. So as I'm going along that's one thing I'm trying to figure out. The margin of cost difference between the racks is not really that significant from what I'm finding (at least not between ones like the Axiom Journey, Topeak Super Tourist, etc.) I am particularly looking for the racks that get the weight as low as possible - especially through the second lower bar option.
In my experience with other hobbies there have always been two schools of thought - buy cheap and replace or buy quality once. In the long run I've always been bitten by the buy cheap strategy. Now I'm careful here because I don't want to imply that spending less on a rack means it's cheaper. Again as I said above, it's why I came here to ask because I simply don't know. I just don't want to have to fuss with it on a month plus long trip and if that means spending a few extra bucks that's fine. I'm just looking for the best options that fit my "get it low" strategy and so far on the list seem to be the Tubus Logo Evo, the Super Tourist, and maybe the Racktime addit (although it's the heaviest.) Axiom doesn't have a lower pannier bar and Blackburn only seems to have basic rack that would be compatible which doesn't solve for trying to get the weight lower.
Hope this helps clarify. Honestly if I wanted to rationalize anything I probably wouldn't have asked.