Hey I'm a Blackburn fan too, but we mustn't forget there were always better racks available if you could afford it. Jack Taylor, Singer, Herse and all the other French constructeurs, plus the Japanese who emulated them, made tubular steel racks that were stiffer and stronger. Solid metal rods can't compete with tubes for strength-to-weight ratio, that's elementary math. Once Jim Merz started making his (when was that BTW?), everything else was immediately second best, though I think you had to buy a Merz frame to get one.

Blackburn's history says '75, but I never saw one until after my trans-con '76 ride. Did anyone actually get one in time for Bikecentennial? Might have been vaporware for a time before the retail pipeline had them. One of my tanscon companions alnd I worked in a big well-connected bike shop, so I think if the Blackburn had been available, we'd have known about it. Maybe not.

I have a Bike World magazine article from '76 where the writer said he'd wanted a Merz rack for "several years", so that probably puts Merz earlier than Blackburn. That article implies you could buy just the racks, for an existing frame — maybe Jim can chime in on whether he actually ever did that.

I made my first tubular CrMo racks in '78, not influenced by Merz because I hadn't seen one yet, I was copying Taylor/Herse/Singer. But I gladly used Blackburn racks on several of my bikes over the years because building a custom one-off CrMo rack is a daunting amount of work, and I'm lazy. I think even the raw tubing to make a rack cost more than a ready-to-ride Blackburn.

Pre-Blackburn, for those of more modest means, there were the Karrimor and Tonard brazed-steel racks "mass" produced by small shops in England, available in the US though distribution was poor, you couldn't just walk into any LBS. The Tonard was sold in the US by Hartley Alley's Touring Cyclist shop in Colorado, rebranded as the TC rack. I still have a couple of those, rode across the continent in '76 with one. I had to mail order it of course.

Then Bruce Gordon came along with his (when? I forget.), which unlike the Merz were adjustable to fit more than just the one frame they were made for. Expensive, but probably something like 3 to 5x as strong as a Blackburn and way stiffer.

Anyone remember the joke ad Gordon put out, that called Blackburn racks "Rockburn" and said they were stone-age? Might have been produced by his then-girlfriend Sky Yeagher (sp?), who made the brilliant 'Welcome to the Future' robot factory spoof (page 1). ('Welcome to the Future' page 2)

Ah, here it is:


I hope this is not seen as disrespectful towards Mr. Blackburn, whom I respect deeply. He will be missed.