How do you tell by looking at geometry, if a bike will be hard to ride with a front load.
I am heavy, and assume it would be better to put added weight in front,
groceries and stuff. This is the bike in question.

I don't know how to tell by looking. I only had one bike which preferred weight in the front. It was a Motobecane Mirage. It rode better with weight on the front than with no weight at all!

Old bikes with slack angles tend not handle much differently with a load on the front. One reason is they're already slow handling, and another is that the slack angle means the weight on a rack does not sit as far forward as it would on a bike with steeper angles.
The weight of a load will dampen the feel of the steering, but it with the pictured bike it probably won't give you the "swinging" feeling while steering unless you're carrying something extremely heavy.

Check out THIS DESCRIPTION of the Kogswell P/R on bikeman.com.

To carry a load on the front, you're typically talking about a steeper head tube angle to reduce wheel flop and increased fork offset to produce a trail of around 30mm (a "normal" road bike has a trail of around 45 - 60mm).

If the geometry of the bike is that of a typical road bike (~73° head tube angle and ~55mm of trail), you're better off carrying your load on a rear rack IMHO.

Here's mine with front and rear racks - heaviest loads always go on the rear, only moderate weight up front .

I get thrown off by weight on the front. For a grocery run, no problem. But anything long, I can't deal with having to keep my hands on the bars every second.

That style of English slack geometry was made for carrying stuff on the rear. For front carrying, you need low trail (30-50mm). Using JimG's trail calculator, I'm guessing the head tube is something like 70 degrees, fork rake is about 50mm, 27" tires, and I get a trail value of 75mm! That's a high-trail frame. Put the load on the rear.

Neal

I would be quite surprised if the OP's bike is steeper than 68 degrees. Fork rake looks to be at least two inches, so figure about 50-60mm, likely less than 70mm of trail - which was pretty common back then.



Despite what is said on the bikeman post about wheel flop being eliminated by using a steepish headtube - a good deal of bicycles built for carrying loads on the front use rather slack frames.
The distribution of weight is more important than wheel flop in terms of effecting handling, using a long fork rake or a slack headtube both help keep the wheel further forward - and thus less weight overhangs the front wheel.

I guess for testing purposes I could mount something like a Wald basket, though my intention was to get one of those Porter racks. I hate to buy one and find it ungainly with a load.

You might try finding an old sping loaded front rack like this: https://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Bicycle-...item19b9a16da8

Wald ones pop up on ebay every now and then, but they seem to be pretty sought after by Schwinn collectors.

Depends on the geometry and where the front rack is mounted. Unless the bike was designed for a lot of weight up front, rear is usually less dangerous.

I measured the bike and it has 67mm of trail.

I really wanted to mount a bigger rack, one of those wood plank affairs.

As far as being designed for weight up front, I can't say, but being what it is, an India-made Hercules, I'm pretty sure they were designed to be pick-up trucks, or used like one.

personally I think it depends wether you wish to have acces to your pretzels and caramels while you are in motion LOL

rack on de front, rack on de front, lookin' like a fool with a rack on the front!
j/k...I would do whatever was easiest to find and assemble.

racks? somebody say racks?

Someday I'll own a Huffy Tote.

Rack on with your best friend, whoa-ya, whoa-ya!

Norsk, now I'll something to sing, when I get my rack of de front!

rack on de front, lookin like a fool...

Easy? I'm going to try to braze up something.