I have considered getting a bigger rear saddle bag such as a Carradine or Revelate Designs Pika but have now stumbled upon the idea of a rear rack and getting a dry bag to strap down to the rack with a chord or two. It would be cheaper for sure. Also, I could use the rack to transport larger items home. What is riding with a rear rack like?

You don't realize that it's there, until you load it down. The only reason to not have one is not wanting to encumber your sporty road bike (which is my own excuse)

Check out the Arkel Randonneur Rack. Clamps to the seat rails with a lever and attaches to the seatpost with a rubber strap. Fast on/off and works well with CF seatposts.

Carradice big saddle bags work without a Rack, If your frame is big enough .. smaller the rack just keeps it out of your wheel.

It's solidly mounted to the saddle and the weight of your Butt on the saddle is greater than whats in the bag .. any how ..

The Nose of the Saddle between your legs is a Control Handle .... Worry if its what you prefer to do .. to me, It doesn't matter ..

I have those bags on the Bike .. and always have some Place to put something when I make a shopping Stop.


The Carra-Dry saddle Bag is Just That, A saddle bag that keeps stuff in it, Dry.

though the heavy cotton canvas ones do that too..

I don't have much clearance between my seat post and the rear wheel. That is why I am considering a rack.

Same as riding without one. Mine adds about one pound of weight to the bike (about the same as a small water bottle) but I certainly don't notice any difference while riding unless I'm carrying some heavy things on it. It's much more versatile in terms of what can be carried than any saddle bag.

I LOVE my Arkel trunk bag, but not so much as it pertains to the Randonneur rack. I have one, and even with a light load in the trunk, it makes the rear of the bike "whippy" when you're climbing or out of the saddle. I tried it with both extension arms, hoping that by using the longer brackets, it would lower the load enough to get rid of that whippy feeling. It didnt work. They rate the rack to be sutible for around 13 lbs; I came nowhere near that and had issues. Here's a pic for reference for those who haven't seen a Randonneur rack

The pic shows the rack installed with the standard brackets, and you can see how high the load sits. I installed the longer brackets after this pic was taken, which were four inches longer, but not nearly long enough to prevent the whippy feeling. And before anyone chimes in to say Ti is whippy- you haven't seen the pipes on my bike. It's built like a brick Sh$T house.
Standard racks? Heck yes- they make your bike truly useful, and like others have mentioned, you wont know it's there until either you need it, or it's loaded.

If you want to check out a less expensive trunk bag, I like mine. It's has a good bit of room while allowing the sides to fold down into larger compartments on each side to carry such as laptops, ipads, etc. About $30 on Amazon. Also has a rain cover that hids away under the bag. Check out the reviews and you'll see a couple of pics of the rain cover and the sides extended down each side.

Trunk

To the OP: you won't notice a rear rack. It does add some weight and that may or may not matter to you. A rear rack is a really useful thing to have if you carry stuff from time to time.

I'm in the same boat as you are. I'm considering whether to buy a carradice bag/reveleate bag or just go with a rack and panniers. There are trade-offs either way.

A rack and a bag will in all likelihood weigh more than a Carradice with a support system (and definitely more than a Revelate).

A rack is a very solid attachment system and a better choice greater weight for that reason. You also have a lot of options when it comes to bags from rack packs to panniers.

If flexibility and weight carrying capacity matter to you, a rack and panniers/rack pack is a better choice. If saving weight in your luggage system matters, go with a carradice/revelate.

I'm retired so I do club rides on Sunday and rides all over town the rest of the week for shopping, library or any other errands. I use a rear rack, sometimes with a trunk bag or for bigger grocery loads, panniers. For me, the rack, enabling hauling stuff around town increases the utility of the bike. Utility is not why I bought a bike but by being more usefull I ride much more.

I suspect the "whippiness" you describe is due the the fact that the load is cantilevered off the seat post with no other bracing. A rack that mounts on the dropouts and seat stays (or brake bridge) doesn't have that problem in my experience, even when fully loaded for an extended camping trip.

I've ridden with a rear rack and bag for years, and honestly, unless it's fully and heavily loaded, I don't notice it at all. I'm the pack mule for our family rides, so I usually have all my tools and spares in there plus snacks, extra drinks, a small first aid kit and other stuff. Right now I'm using the Topeak Explorer Tubular rack with the Topeak MTX TrunkBag DX and have been very pleased with it.

I'd also be leery of using a seatpost-mounted rack like that on anything but a really substantial seatpost. Definitely not on any weight-weenie post.

It mounts to the seat rails and rests against the seat post with a rubber strap. If the seatpost is strong enough to support your weight it's plenty strong enough for this.. IMO, whippy sensation is due to the added weight and height of the weight. The rack itself is quite stable.

Here's what I've been doing for a dozen years: I simply slip my backpack in between the bungees and the tension keeps it in place. My newest bag has no "shoulders" like this older bag, so I added a couple of d-clips on the side for safety, but so far (4 months) it doesn't seem necessary. On an even older back-pack with a different bungee, I was able to have two straps over the top and one on each side. I was looking for a video where I show myself punching the bag and shaking the bike to show how it is stable, but I couldn't find it. Your mileage may vary. As far as "feeling" the weight...only when I lift the bike. However, you'll notice I had to relocate the kickstand to the back to keep the bike from tipping when loaded. This placement works very well!

They're nice if you need to / have to carry extra stuff and have a "long" bag strapped to it. One of my other hobbies is amateur radio, and during this past summer, I'd ride to different radio events and have a couple of hand held radios along with some rather long antennas in my bag. In a regular saddle or handle bar bag, those would have stuck out of the bag, but now with my rack bag.

The only "problem" I ran into when I first put the rack and bag on was a couple of times I didn't swing my leg up high enough when getting off the bike. Fell on my butt hard enough once for it to be bruised for four days. The other time just my ego was bruised as I fell backwards (onto my butt again, but on grass that time) in front of a rather good sized crowd. Thankfully, getting my leg up a little higher automatically came rather quickly.

Without knowing anything about your bike or situation I would say go with a rack. I have ridden with tubular racks, seatpost mounted racks, big seat bags, handlebar bags, etc. Depending on the application, each one has it's advantages. However, a tubular rack is far better at carrying heavy loads and offers more versatility than any of the other options for most applications. If I only had one bike, it would have a rack on the back.

My old Colnago Super has carried a rack for most of its life. it is an old Blackburn Aluminum rack, bolted to the triangles of the Campy-Style dropouts, p-clips to the seat stays.

Many of the newer racks have a center strip (mud, tire protection) which would be nice to have, although I had put some plastic on top of mine for a while.

Anyway, I don't notice the rack when it is on the bike empty... at least I don't think so. Somewhere around 20 or 30 pounds, the rear-end of the bike starts feeling a little flexy. I'm not quite sure what causes the feeling, but the bike still is ridable, just I try to be a little more gentle with it.

I built a pretty heavy duty rack for my Cargo bike. I've had a few 100+ lb loads on the rack. The trick is not allowing the bike to tip over.

Here's mine. Its a cheapo rack from Performance Bike (<$30), and has a swapmeet-bought basket adhered to it. Plop my stuff in, put a bungee over it, and I'm off. Ob a basic level, its attached to the bicycle and the weight of the load doesn't shift around while turning corners, going up hills and swinging side-to-side

Here is my commuter with my rear rack. I also ride it when the weather is bad versus taking my Synapse out and I don't pull the rack off and would never know it was there.

When I got both my LWB bent and my trike, the first thing I did was equip them with a rear rack. I have a trunk pack on both that I carry what I deem will get me home riding, not walking. You do not need to get a heavy frame rack suitable to carry paniers for a cross county ride, unless that is what you want to do. Both my racks are fairly light, but I am not a weight weenie anyway. I cant tell you how many times I have stopped and helped riders that carry NOTHING when out for a ride.

Here's some things for you to think about:

1. Heel strike. If you put panniers on a bike with fashionably short chainstays, you are likely to hit them with your heel.
2. Front-to-back balance. If you try to compensate for heel strike by moving your load rearward, your front wheel will be more lightly loaded than you're used to and your bike will handle funny.
3. Side-to-side balance. Loading a lot of weight on top of a rear rack will make starts more awkward.
4. How do you get onto your bike? If you pile a lot of stuff on top of a rear rack, you might hit it with your leg while getting on or off of your bike.
5. What do you want to carry back there anyway? I have a couple of rather big bags that I keep attached to my recumbents. Honestly, I'm not sure what's in either one at this moment. I do know that one spring when I opened the bag we kept on our tandem, I found a banana left over from the previous fall. The bigger the bag the more stuff you'll carry around with you all the time.

Heal strike can be annoying. At least many of the older panniers were more or less triangular shaped on the rear to allow them to be big at the top and small at the bottom.

I kind of approximate the rear triangle of my bike as the Do-Not-Load zone.

It is sometimes awkward, but one can usually figure out how to throw one's leg over the top tube, and not behind the seat. Perhaps that would be an advantage of a lower top tube. However, it is never that big of a deal.

I am now doing essentially 100% of my shopping by bike. So, all kinds of "crap" comes home with me either in a back pack, or tied to my rack. I've carried a few bike wheels home tied to the side of my rack. My Colnago might choke with it, but I had two, 50 lb bags of flour on the rack of my Cargo bike. And the trailer can pick up a lot that the racks can't handle. Of course, there is touring too.

I bet you have the coolest looking bike in the commuter rack at the office.

Over here there are basically two types of rear racks and they can be seen at the following links ...

tubus - Cargo classic

tubus - Logo classic

The Ortlieb bags I use can only be used on the second type of rear rack which has an additional set of rails that position the bike bags a little further away from the bike itself.

Almost everyone over here (excluding racing bikes) uses rear racks and the majority of folks use bike bags as well.