I have a lot of brazeons on my front fork. Yesterday I was thinking of what various things folks mount on their front forks. The most obvious I have seen were front panniers and waterbottle cages. What else?

Never seen a pannier mounted to a front fork. Have seen racks mounted to front forks and panniers attached to the racks.


Have also seen lights mounted on front forks.

correct, although I did not want to say front rack because that could just end the discussion as You can then mount bunch of items onto the front rack. I wanted to see what items people mounted in the front fork area (on fork or rack or some kind of velcro attachment)

While I only connect a front rack to my fork, in theory, you could create a kind of harness that would hold whatever you attached to it. Salsa makes the Anything cage that is designed for Salsa bikes, as an example.

DIY Pez dispenser?

Fender, light, speed sensor, rack, cages

I used to normally carry my sleeping bag on my front rack platform and will still do on occasions when I need extra room for food. I also carried my tent on my front rack platform during two extended tours. And I have used the platform for firewood runs.

Last year I was able to do without front fork attachment but this year I'm going to go with the Salsa Anything cage.

I do not have any racks at this point. I have a rear seat bag, frame bag, handlebar bag, 2 handlebar buckets and top tube mini bag (most are from Revelate).

At some times I wished I had the front fork option which would allow me to skip wearing a light backpack.

Ak47

A word of caution. Forks are the highest vibration and shock location on a bicycle. Objects that encounter the front tire or spokes often get lodged at the fork causing hard crashes, very often with head injuries and broken collarbones.

Make sure everything you mount on your fork is 'you trust your life to it' secure! (This includes handlebar bags and anything on the handlebars as well. My mom's flute playing is permanently slurred from injury to her mouth when she crashed from a loose strap catching her spokes.)

Edit: that said, I love LowRider racks and Ortleib panniers, both using the U-bolt adopters and braze-ons. So far, only my Mooney has ever had braze-ons and that only on the second fork he made me. (I crashed the first.) When I asked for the braze-ons initially, he said he wouldn't, that he was unwilling to drill fork blades. When I asked again for the second fork he said he would do it with English generator mounts if I likes but they would be bigger, more visible and take a larger bolt that would require drilling the rack hole bigger. I said yes and have never regretted it.

Ben

Long ago discontinued , 80's buy, But I have my cycle computer off the bars and mounted on my right fork blade.

It sits just below the cantilever Brake boss and above the Low Rider Rack.

I can leave it there , computer thieve/vandals never found it.. I look at the data about miles occasionally.




./.

One of my conundrums is a January trip I have planned in which I will have to somehow pack snowshoes. It looks like I might have to wear a backpack again.

Do you use something like Surly 24 pack rack ? I thought it would be better than a handlebar bag but then the extra weight ... :-) things are adding up and when you need to go uphill in the snow it gets to a point when you just have to get off the bike and push :-)

These days I used the Nitto Big front rack from Rivendell. I originally had a custom set of Robert Beckman racks, which both had large platforms. Alas, someone stole them from my house along with the LHT they were attached to.

Drybags in extra-large water bottle cages:

The frame bag looks huge.

I think I will eventually consider buying front and rear racks for Ortliebs but I'm not there yet. :-) A rear rack would sure make it easier to carry snowshoes.

Oh yeah, it's mega-mega. The Pugsley has a tall standover height compared to a lot of other mountain and fat bikes. I asked Nick at Rogue Panda to make the framebag extra wide and roll-top, so I have crammed a lot of equipment in there. It's cavernous!

In this picture, the framebag has a full propane tank for my stove, rain gear, mittens, a spare mountain bike tire, a pump, an ultralight BB wrench, tent poles and stakes, a jar of peanut butter, a spare water bottle, and my toolkit and spare tubes. All the heavy, dense stuff.

Tie them to an Extrawheel trailer (its a 2nd front tire too)

lowriders:

one side ziptie a figger-8 folded wirebead spare tire. other side make
a hook/clip to carry 2m coil lock. saves mucho space in rear panniers.

should be simple enough to rig a bracket to mount your snowshoes onto
the sides of a lowrider.

PW, I put a lot of faith into rear and front rack mounting options from the various manufacturers. I also will do almost anything to avoid wearing a back pack on a bike. I'm not too excited about frame bags, but my youngest loves them and packs the densest, and sometime the heaviest, items into it.

If I were to need to load snow shoes, or tennis rackets, I'd use the rear rack's platform or one on a front rack. I have racks with and without covered platforms. The one without the covered platform is more suited to adopting odd ball loads.

Long worded way to suggest a front lowrider that features a platform.

Brad

ok. Maybe I should ask for a concrete recommendation for front and rear racks that will accomodate Ortlieb Panniers and could be attached to Surly Ice Cream Truck and Surly Disc Trucker? Please and Thanks :-)