1Mule

+ 1 for the Surly Nice front rack, I have Surly racks front and back on my tourer, mount your stuff low, high, whatever your bike likes. They're a little heavy, but STRONG and tons of attachment points. Mounting a pair of them on my girlfriend's tourer this weekend.

indyfabz

My front rack has at least 41 welds and 10 bends. It was then plated with nickel.

AusTexMurf

Dedicated touring, Surly rack is strong, low center of gravity, but heavy.
Mixed use as commuter, grocery hauler, daily ride, and can accommodate front panniers, I prefer the Soma Porteur. YMMV.

robow

I'm not sure if it was yourself or another but a long time ago someone posted photos of how they took a Blackburn Expedition or a similar standard rear rack and used simple hardware found around town and created an ingenious solid front rack for next to nothing. Does anyone have those photos or remember that thread?

Edit: OK, this isn't the same thread but a couple of photos on post #10 can give you an idea. The other gentleman may have mounted his using the lower skewer of his front hub.

https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/73...ack-front.html

LeeG

That's a fine heavy duty rack but on some bikes the back top corner will hit the down tube if the bars are turned to the side. $.02 a very simple front rack can carry as much weight as you'd want to ever carry on the front and weigh a lot less than the Jandd rack. More important than all that metal is whether you can adjust the panniers back far enough to be in line with the fork and over or behind the front axle.

LeeG

Fishboat, what bike and load is this rack for? Focusing on front racks in general leaves out your specific situation

FXjohn

that looks like 5-10 pounds of firewood. is that heavy?

staehpj1

FWIW, I have found the inexpensive low rider clones to be fine. Friends, family, and I have used ones from Nashbar and Performance and found them plenty adequate. I have not seen them on their sites lately though. Others have similar racks for under $20.

indyfabz

Don't know what each bundle weighed, but they were heavy. Certainly well more than 5 lbs. each and maybe more than 10. sure beat walking a half mile with them.

tclune

Quite right. I opted for the Soma Porteur for my use and love it, but that is mostly because I do more around-town errands than long touring. The Soma is terrific for things that are normally awkward to carry on a bike -- you can bring home a pizza or even a watermelon on it. But the front pannier options are a bit limited. It is set up for small front panniers. I use the large front panniers from Nashbar, but they are a bit of a force-fit. And I don't use front panniers at all for my typical jaunt to a state park that is no more than a day's ride away. For full-out touring, something like the Surly rack might well be the better tool.

fishboat

That's true..thanks for asking..and thanks to everyone's suggestions..with this input I'm sure to arrive at a great solution.

I have a set of Nashbar front & back panniers. The back rack is a Axiom Journey.

What's the front rack for? General touring setup..to hang the Nashbar front panniers in a low-rider position. I'm leaning toward having an (integrated) rack above the tire to hold a bulky-light item. Given the apparent cost of front racks, I'd like to make the purchase once with respect to low-rider racks and a rack above the tire. If I need the top rack..it's there, if not..no biggy. If I do need it, at least I won't have to re-purchase a new front rack to get it.

An a-la-carte option would be to purchase a hoop lowrider rack (like a tubus..etc) and add a Sunlite brake-boss mounted, above tire rack if I need it..they're cheap..

The bike is below..(as a side note..I did check for heel-strike with the nashbar rear panniers..i have lots of room..no issues there)

fishboat

That's part of the problem..in my research I've come across references to a number of lesser-cost front rack options and when I try to find them today...they no longer exist. It seems a number of suppliers are paring down their offerings in the front-rack area...which partly drives me asking the question I have..

mstateglfr 

Not sure if its already been mentioned as an option-
https://www.amazon.com/Blackburn-Tit.../dp/B01EK484ZE

Has low rider or standard higher mounting options for panniers. Also has a top platform for something thats light but bulky.
As a bonus, the top platform can be removed and the rack still has rigidity due to the hoop over the wheel making a lighter rack.





...ive been considering this for a while now.

fishboat

Yeah..I did see that one too and (now that I've resigned myself to not doing this at a $50 price point..sigh) it does look like a good combo of light, functional, relatively low cost..but the funky color..what's that about?? It's not unfinished metal..so they thought about a finish..keep it simple..why not black? Does look good though(from a functional standpoint).

MixedRider

I think you just answered the OP's question about why decent front racks cost more! Axiom tried to do it for cheap, but it just isn't working out. When other manufacturer's know they have a better product, they can charge more.

On a side note, I use a Salsa Down Under front rack. No problems with Ortlieb front roller panniers. Mounts easy - is stable. Not too expensive either (~$55US).

Big Lew

Like "Leebo", I put a rear rack on the front. I also hang my panniers
up high like the rear ones. I also put bulky gear on top of both front
and rear racks. I've toured all over western North America with this
setup without mechanical or stability issues. My touring buddy has
the low riders and we've compared wind resistance between the two
setups and mine had less allowing me to coast faster down steep hills.

fishboat

That is an interesting approach..and much less costly. Actually I have an old Blackburn..like 30 years old..looks like new..I may have to take a look at it tomorrow..

B. Carfree

I've also been through a few rear racks in forty odd years of touring, but I have only had one front rack fail and it was one I picked up second-hand.

Three years ago when I picked up a custom tandem in Seattle, I brought my original 1982 Blackburn lowrider rack for the shop to put on so we could carry some front bags for our 500 mile ride home. That rack has over 100,000 miles on it and will likely go at least another 100,000. The owner and mechanics laughed and said they didn't realize when I said I was bringing an old rack that I meant ancient.

DropBarFan

I liked the Jandd Extreme's top platform for carrying camping stuff but it was very heavy & aluminum stay got abraded. Tubus low-riders seem like the obvious choice, sturdier steel Tara is cheaper than Jandd Extreme @ 1/3rd the weight. Camping stuff can be lashed atop rear rack. Not much we can do about niche-market prices but Tubus is supposed to last ~a lifetime, eh?

AdvXtrm

I recently ordered the front and rear set of this line from Blackburn, but I found that when they drilled out the mounting holes during manufacturing, they let the shavings fall down inside the tubing and left them there, so they sounded like rattle cans of sorts. They made a higher-pitched clanking and ringing type noise when moved or bumped at all, and I found it to be irritating., so I returned them. Since my new bike already came with a really good rear rack stock, I just ordered a Jandd Extreme Front Rac and now I'm all set.

mstateglfr 

before returning the front rack, did you mount bags to it? I understand how bags could be mounted high, but dont see how they could be mounted low due to the curved bottom of the rack.
Its a high and low ride rack though.
Is there a mount that attaches to the point area to hook bags onto the rack?

AdvXtrm

As I was mounting them and realized the jangling racket they were making I immediately stopped the install, inspected them, tried to get the loose metal shavings out but couldn't, so I just put them back into the box and shipped them off for a refund. So unfortunately no, I didn't even bother trying them out in any way. I will say that they were remarkably light weight, and very beautifully built aside from the issue with the metal bits rattling around inside them.

edthesped

I have the Outpost front rack and Ortlieb Front Rollers mount low quite nicely. I'll try to shoot a picture this weekend. I really like the rack BTW...

mstateglfr 

Yes please do!
What will really be funny(and by funny, I also mean kinda sad) is that the company responded to an email question from me with this quoted text- "I did do some research and unfortunately, the rack was not setup to work in the lower position."

I emailed them asking how the pannier mounts in the low position since nothing online(all the pics and reviews) mention or show the rack being used in the lowrider position.

This doesnt inspire confidence in the product when the company doesnt know what their own product can and cant do.
...but such is the world of outsourced manufacturing and large companies overseeing/managing multiple brands across multiple consumer categories.

edthesped

I may have misled you. The bag won't mount on the lowest horizontal bar. It mounts on the middle bar. See attached pictures.

Edit: I feel so self conscious about posting pictures of my bikes as they're never as clean as everyone elses...