fietsbob

I used the hoop to mount the tip of my front Mudguard, actually a second rear..

indyfabz

Mr. Beckman, by any chance?

cyccommute 

As others have said, it's for stability. Think of it this way, if you have a single, roughly 10 mm (1/4" for the metrically challenged) tube or rod holding the load, that's not a lot of strength. The Tubus Duo uses 2 rods but that's still somewhat unstable. The hoop just braces the front of the rack and doesn't allow it to bend inward.

Since you don't have mid-fork braze-ons, it's not a good idea to go with something like the Duo or other hoopless designs. There's just not anything stabilizing the rack. I would suggest the Tubus Tara which is very strong and very stable.

You...like a lot of people...are misunderstanding how you should load the bike for optimal handling. Bicycling magazine (back when they were actually useful) did a test in the early 80s when the Blackburn lowrider came out. They demonstrated that carrying more load over the front wheel improved the way the bike handles the touring load. Going to a 60% low front load/40% high rear load made the bike the most stable and easiest to handle. The worst handling situation was putting the same split but using a lowrider in the back.

I suggest you try putting all the dense, heavy stuff (cooking gear, food, fuel canisters, etc) in small panniers on the front and put all the light, bulky stuff (clothing, sleeping bag, etc) on the back. This has been the way that I tour on many bikes over the years. I even go so far as to utilize the front panniers only if I happen to be on a tour without camping. My wife usually carries only front panniers. At the very least, experiment with a heavier load on the front to see if it will work for you.

jefnvk

That is what I was planning on this time. I didn't have front panniers last time, and definitely overpacked the back. That is the whole reason the front was included this time.

Tourist in MSN

As others have commented, without mid-fork mounts you want the bar over the front. Otherwise a rack held on with a U clamp does not have a lot of structure preventing it from shifting in and out.

If you are hitting rocks and such while on the gravel, I am not sure how well a U clamp on the top of the rack will work if the weight of the pannier could pull the U clamp down. But the Blackburn style where the top of the rack could not slide down because the bottom of the rack is attached to the fender mount at the bottom may be better. The design of the rack means that the weight of the pannier would in part be supported with the fender mount at the dropout. A Tubus Tara however has a top bar that would need to clamp onto the the fork blade and only friction from that clamp would hold the top bar in place.

I used the non-hoop style (photo in a post above) only because I wanted to make it easier to pack in an S&S case where I did not have a lot of room. My other bike that is not an S&S coupled bike has the hoop style rack, a Tubus Ergo.

I put my really dense stuff like tools, spare tire, etc., in the bottom of a rear pannier. If you are on gravel, you may find that less weight in your front panniers makes your steering less heavy if you are steering around obstructions. I try to get the center of gravity of my panniers as low down as possible with the lightest stuff like a sleeping bag on top. I think front loading panniers makes more sense on pavement where you are going faster and less likely to have to steer around obstacles.

Squeezebox

Any pictures maybe?

jefnvk

Yep, whichever one I go with will be attached on the bottom eyelets. I don't want one that is held on solely by clips.

mstateglfr 

If you do toss in more cash for a platform front rack, ill add to my earlier comments about jandd and say their extreme rack is really solid.
Its some welded tubing, so nothing to get too excited about, but I love mine. high and low bag mounts and the platform was used sporadically(which was nice to have the option).

Not cheap, but I expect it to last for many years and try to justify more expensive 1 time purchases this way! I also compare em to shoes. $80 for some shoes thatll wear out in less than a year or $80 for a bike product thatll last many years. justification is beautiful.

tmac100

Arvon Stacey, Tofield Alberta. He is now retired but sixtyfiver has taken over his craft after serving his apprenticeship with Arvon.

PM me if anyone needs details.

tmac100

I usually don't take pictures. However a (not very good) pic of the bike with rear rack is at Arvon Cycles "Expedition Grade" Touring Bike with S and S Couplings

indyfabz

Nice. I had a set of custom Beckman racks, both with large platforms, until someone stole them along with the Surly LHT they were attached to the week before Christmas of 2010. I was stupid to leave them on the bike when I wasn't touring.

fietsbob

Bob & Bruce were working together, when both were in Eugene, I got needleworks bags that fit bruces racks

any one interested set of 4,?, world tour Blue.. Bruce still making the racks

(I modified mine for the bike that was built. )

Tourist in MSN

If you are interested in a small platform front rack, Nashbar makes a tiny one and Sunlite makes a very similar one.

On the bike in the photo, I have the Tubus Ergo lowrider front rack and the Nashbar front rack. The Nashbar one attaches on the the cantilever brake bosses, if you have those on your fork. But if you have a disc fork, you are out of luck. I have my orange polartec vest strapped onto the front rack in teh photo. The rack is quite small and does not have much weight capacity, but handy for when I have a few small items I want to stash somewhere. Sometimes I strap spare water bottles onto that rack.

jefnvk

Yeah, I looked at the Nashbar one in combination with the Nashbar pannier rack. I decided against the platform, just one more thing that likely needs removed and reassembled for transport, and couldn't think of anything small I'd lash up there.

Except for a six pack, though, looked just big enough to handle that

saddlesores

some of the wee tiny platform racks are designed for disc forks,
supplied with p-clamps.

Nitto M18 Front Rack Mount Bicycle Rack: Silver | eBay

you can also search fleabay/CL for vintage blackburn front racks with
platform, mount to crown and dropouts.

Blackburn Crossrack Alloy Rear Bicycle Rack Trek Cannondale Specialized Felt | eBay

Doug64

I think this is an "urban myth" that everyone attributes to Jim Blackburn. I have not found any evidence supporting the 60% front 40% rear loading concept that can be attributed to Blackburn. Actually, I was unable to find any information about the origin of the 60/40 at all. Maybe some of you will have some credible information on this and help us clear up our "misunderstanding".

This is a picture of the summary describing the results of Jim Blackburn's "tests". I tried to track the origin of the urban myth—more weight in front, and was able to get this picture of a page in Blackburn's 1995 catalog from John Schubert who is the past Technical Editor for Adventure Cycling Magazine. I cropped the page so the summary was legible. He only sent me a picture of the last page of the article describing 4 of Jim Blackburn's tests of 17 different configurations. The original work was done by Jim Blackburn and crew in approximately 1981.

You also have to realize that Blackburn's tests were conducted using 80 lbs. of weight.



This is an article that John Schubert wrote for Adventure Cycling Magazine:
https://www.adventurecycling.org/res...a-rack-primer/

"In the early 1980s, Blackburn directed a series of experiments mixing various combinations of front and rear panniers, high and low pannier mounting, and handlebar bags. Blackburn and his test rider, Jim Gentes (who went on to found Giro helmets), found that the best-handling combination was high-mount rear panniers, low-mount front panniers, and a bare minimum of weight in a handlebar bag. Because of this finding, Blackburn went on to design and build his Lowrider front pannier rack. Adding front panniers does make your bike’s steering feel slower, but in a way that feels benign and easy to control. By contrast, adding weight in a handlebar bag makes the bike resist your control, so a handlebar bag should be restricted to holding a few light items.

Blackburn also found that an acceptable alternative way to configure your load was to use high-mount front panniers instead of low-mount. The bike still handles acceptably this way. This is important to know because off-road tourists generally need high-mount panniers for the improved ground clearance. In addition, a conventional high-mount pannier rack has a small top shelf which can hold more of your possessions. This is of particular interest to tandem tourists, who have less pannier and rack space per person than single bike tourists."

There is another article published on the ACA website that promotes the 60/40, front-back split, but nothing to back this up:https://www.adventurecycling.org/res...d-how-to-pack/

"When touring with panniers, try to keep your total load between 15 and 45 pounds. Your bike will be most stable if you put more weight in your front panniers--roughly 60 percent of weight in front and 40 percent in back. Experiment with weight distribution to find the best handling results for your particular bike. Items like tools, spare bike parts, cooking equipment, fuel bottles, food, and on-the-bike clothing usually go in the front panniers and light, bulky items like clothes in the rear panniers. Your sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and tent are usually strapped to the rear rack and add to the weight on the rear wheel."

saddlesores

do i understand this correctly? jim ran a bunch of tests with ONE rider,
a massive (atypical for touring) amount of weight, using various configurations
on maybe ONE bicycle?

so the biblical 60-40 prophecy of THE ONE best way is based on
just one dude's subjective feelings?


now my cynical side is telling me he designed this "experiment" simply
as a marketing gimmick for his soon-to-be-introduced lowriders.

Doug64

As far as I can tell "60/40" was not mentioned. That is my point, where did it come from? If someone has better information, it sure would be nice if they would share it.

Tourist in MSN

I have always thought that it really boiled down to the bike. I claim total ignorance on issues of fork trail and loading, etc. So I will make no comment on front vs rear loading in that regard.

But I can say that I had one touring bike that handled so bad that after my trip I stripped the components off of it and put the frame in the metal recycle bin. Friends asked why I did not sell it, as it was worth a lot of money. But I did not want someone to buy it and suffer the problems I had so I discarded it instead.

Another one of my touring bikes, I was on a group ride and overslept one morning. Not wanting to be toooooo far behind the group, I just blindly packed up my gear as fast as I could and had my weight distributed about as bad as possible. I think one front pannier was my lightest pannier and the other front was the heaviest. The bike however rode as well that day as on any other day. I expected it to pull to one side and it did not even do that. Since then I have been much more sloppy with my loading that particular bike.

And I have another touring bike (this one is a heavy duty expedition bike) that I can put the weight in the front, the rear, basically anywhere and it will work out great.

On a group ride I did several years ago, one guy with a Co-Motion Americano had the giant sized Arkel rear panniers and a big load on top of them, no front rack. I asked if the bike handled ok that way, he said that that particular bike handled so well regardless of how he loaded it, that for this trip he decided to just leave the front panniers and front rack at home. Since he had to pack it in an S&S case for this trip, he decided that simplifying assembly and disassembly was more important than weight distribution.

I think each bike owner needs to really just move their gear around until they find the way that the bike handles best.

BigAura

Yep, it doesn't make sense. Virtually all front bags & racks are smaller than the rears'. I heard people argue that's because you should but dense stuff up front, but I've never seen a pannier manufacturer state this.

Personally I pack for convenience and pay no attention to weight distribution. I've never experienced any issues because of weight distribution.

Snuts

+1
Let's all get on our bikes and go for a ride!

Each shake-down trip last spring, I amended my gear list.
On my 20 day trek, each time I broke camp I shuffled things around for the day.
Day 7 I bought new rear Panniers and my Brooks B-17 (Souvenir's of Winnipeg). At my destination 14 days later I changed my style of bars, and added a frame bag.

Not much left to improve on "My" set-up.

-Snuts-

cyccommute 

The load was not "atypical" for the era. A "light weight" tent of the era was 7 lbs to 9 lbs. A lightweight sleeping bag was 5 to 7. Stoves were not that light nor was cookware. An 80 lb load might be on the high end but not by much.

No one, as far as I can tell, has ever said that you "must" use a 60/40 front/rear split. It's a suggestion and there is nothing "biblical" nor prophetic about it. I'll see if I can find the article but I did read it in the late 80s in Bicycling magazine and the concept has been field tested by not just me but many people and we find it to be a useful method.

If you don't want to use it, that's fine. No skin off my nose. But at least try it for more than a parking lot ride before you go denigrating method and the people who use it. Most of us have tried the overloaded rear panniers and find this way to be much better.

jefnvk

At least then, everyone that was confident that their loading strategy was the best option could go to the top of a big hill, load up, and ride down, and whomever gets to the bottom fastest in one piece is obviously the correct one

Snuts

Now if we can do it for $7/day in Canada!
Ha-ha.

What works for me, I won't even promote or defend.
I enjoy it.

-Snuts-

saddlesores

i understand that if i am "misunderstanding" how i "should" do it, the implication is i'm doing it wrong.


not that it matters, but i've done a tad bit more than parking lot test rides:
front bags + hbar bag
front bags + hbar bag + rear bags
front bags + hbar bag + carp on rack
front bags + hbar bag + rear bags + trailer
front bags + hbar bag + trailer
front bags + hbar bag + carp on rack + trailer
rear bags + hbar bag
rear bags + hbar bag + carp on rack
hbar bag + trailer
.....and a few more configurations i've forgotten about.

i don't see anywhere in my post that i "denigrated" anyone who chooses this style.

i was pointing out that jim's method was not particularly scientific, something you
surely must agree with. handling, comfort, pleasure, enjoyment, stability are rather
subjective. jim used ONE rider, possibly (currently unknown) ONE bicycle, and ONE
abnormal load. i'm sure you can find someone who toured with an 80-pound load
(i did it!), but that's probably not the average or normal load for that era. you
yourself said it was on the high end.

the "fact" that one dude like it does not necessarily make it the best or optimum
method for anyone else.