moxfyre

... to a frame that has eyelets on the rear dropouts but no mounting place on the seat stays. I'm trying to fit a rack to a Nishiki Sport with 27" tires. The top tube is only about 3 inches higher than the back of the rear wheel, so I'm thinking clearance might be a problem. Any advice?

alanbikehouston

I thought doing this was pretty simple, so I tried it myself - and ran into some problems. The ten bucks I paid my LBS to "undo" my errors and mount the rack correctly was money well spent. Some people (especially me) should hesitate to pick up a screwdriver.

bsyptak

A couple of different methods I can think of:

1. At Lowes store in the electrical section, They have metal clips in different sizes that go around the seat stays. They are rubber coated so they don't scratch. Out of the front of your rack comes bendable metal thingys that will nicely connect to the clips. I've seen racks that come with these, so buy the rack first and check. Pretty much like these (bottom left are the clips, and bendable metal thingys are along the top:

https://www.mec.ca/Products/product_d...=1102525412450

2. https://www.mec.ca/Products/product_d...=1102525478116

You should be able to find this or at least order it in LBS.

DanO220

I'm sure there are clamps you could fit to your seat stays, but I would investigate the brake bridge and seat post bolts first. Neither of them look to be overly engineered on a frame of that vintage, so you should be able to somehow secure a bracket. DanO

super-douper

I used clamps similar to what bsyptak is talking about (i think) I got them from home depot in the electrical section. I used them to mount fenders on my suspension forks with no eyelets.

moxfyre

Cool, thanks. The rack is an one I fished out of my parents' garage, so I don't have the hardware, but I'll pick some of those clips up at Home Depot. I will try attaching to the brake bridge as well. That sounds like a good idea as the seatstays are at an awkward angle it seems.

I'm not too worried about mechanical ability, because I stripped/assembled/repaired/repainted the bike in question myself ;-)

super-douper

mine too.

cyccommute 

There are a couple of ways of attaching a rack to this bike.

1: You could use p-clamps and just clamp them around the chainstays at a whatever location is handy. I've done this on numerous bike with good results

2: Depending on the rack and how much surgery you are willing to do to it, you could use a single stay on the rack and mount that stay behind the brake. I'd done that also without problems. You will need a rack that has either a solid rear deck or has holes down the middle of the rack. If it has a solid deck you might be able to drill the required holes in that deck and then mount it.

If you use a rack for a 700C bike you shouldn't have any clearance problems. I've had to fit racks to really small bikes and never had problems with tire clearance. You might want to look at the Delta Universal racks if you do have a problem because they can be adjusted.

moxfyre

Excellent! I've started a poll on what operating systems people use!

MichaelW

3 point mounting at the dropouts and brake bolt used to be the std way to mount a rack on a sport bike. You need to cut, drill and bend a bit of steel to the right shape.
I found 3 point to be adaquate for everyday use, but a proper 4 point mounting onto brazeons is much stiffer.

ivan_yulaev

I had the same problem, my rack was very old and not compatible with my Trek 1000. The bars would attach, but not to the seatpost-area. So, I took two zipties, and ziptied it onto the area just where the dropout begins to form. Also, there are two screws there, so the zipties stay up.

Man, being cheap rawks :-)