Hi again, what's the difference between regular pannier racks and those that specify disc brakes? Are they wider? Is it the way they mount?

I'm not seeing a lot of options for disc brake compatible racks. For example, on CRC there are 40 racks which don't mention disc brakes and only 3 that do.

Are my choices really that limited?

I use the Topeak Explorer disc-compatible rack, which works well with the Topeak slide on trunk bags.

A lot of it depends on where your caliper is mounted. If the caliper is inside the rear triangle, any rack will do. This location is becoming more common.

In any event, that's where my caliper is so I didn't need a special rack and I don't know exactly what makes them special.

Rather than the rack going straight to the dropout, the rack is designed to clear a caliper mounted on the back of the seatstay. Kind of an L-shaped mount, rather than straight. This pushes the rack stays outboard, without which you would have to come up with a DIY installation.

Yup. Think of it as a regular rack, but where it mounts to the stay there's about 3/4 inch or so standoff to clear the caliper. You could easily use a regular rack spread with a stack of washers on each side, but the disc specific ones just look neater. I have one of the same racks alan s does.

Does anyone have a closeup pic of this?

EDIT: Recalled incorrectly.

A quick Google search turned up a bunch of results under "disc compatible rack."

Axiom Journey Disc

from a sellers site: htthttps://www.calhouncycle.com/produ...oduct=1327p://
see detail #2

the stand off itself is a pretty basic machine shop project.

I'm using a standard rack that I (carefully) bent to the correct configuration, and I used a simple hardware store coupling nut [IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/P23368/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.png[/IMG] to get the needed offset.[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/P23368/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/P23368/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png[/IMG] I've since replaced the coupling nut with one of the spacers that comes as standard hardware with PB cascadia fenders.

I have the Old Man Mountain "Cold Springs" rear rack on my disc-equipped Specialized Stumpjumper hard tail. See https://oldmanmountain.com/Pages/Rack...ar_gallery.htm for photos. In the top photo you can clearly see the stand-off on the mount. This requires an extra long rear skewer, but seems to work well. I've had mine for about 3 years with zero problems.

Thanks for the details. I went to the LBS yesterday where they have the non-disc brake Topeak SuperTourist and held it up to a couple of bikes with disc brakes. Now re-reading this thread it all makes sense.

I'm not sure how common it is to have the caliper mounted inside the rear triangle. It appeared all the disc equipped bikes at this shop would need a disc specific version rack. However, I did get an email from Cube which said,

"The Mounting points are on the outside of the frame and the disc brake is on the inner side."

So it looks like I might be able to use any rack afterall.