Rack and Fender - Same Eyelet
 

Good day, hope this is the right forum for the question but I would guess folks with touring bikes or commuters have come across this issue before.

So I finally picked up a Surly Nice Front and Rear Rack for my LHT and noticed an issue. My LHT already has a set of SKS fenders and the front fender mounts in the rear eyelet of the fork which is where Surly recommends the Nice rack is mounted to. To me, it makes sense to put the rack mount inboard and the fender mount outboard on the same eyelet with a longer M5 bolt. PROBLEM is the SKS front fenders have a plastic "quick release" do-dad that is close to a 1/4 thick doesn't rest comfortable against the Surly rack mount.

I have heard some have used hose clamps or P-clips mounted higher on the fork blade for the fender. Has anybody wrestled with this before and come up with a good solution?

Is there enough room on the inside of the eyelets for the fender mount if you use a panhead M5 bolt and a washer or two to clear the hub and spokes? Or, would the plastic fender thingy rub on the hub?

I had a Surly rack years ago, I mounted it on the outside of the fork and mounted my fender inside, but the fender I used did not have a plastic fitting like you cite. And my fork was a LHT fork from 2004 which might have different specifications.

P clips would probably work. My Thorn brand bikes have the fender mounts up higher above the dropout, that is not a problem at all. I assume you are talking about the rubber and metal ones like these, but this example is probably the wrong size.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Gardner-...1600/202875644

Without seeing a photo, it's a bit hard for me to visualize it, but I've used spacers with no issues for years with similar situations.
from my experience, if the bolt has threadlock locktite or heavy grease or whatever on it to help reduce vibration induced loosening, you should be good to go.

but take some clear photos of the situation and I can see how it compares to my surly troll setup with racks and sks fenders.

I’ve dealt with this is a couple of ways. In the past, I just pulled the breakaway off the fender (don’t need it for the rear) and trapped it under the rack bolt. Use a washer under the bolt.







https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...410478cc9.jpeg

More recently I went with p-clamps but I used nylon ones. You don’t need anything really strong to hold the fender. You can find nylon p-clamps at your local hardware.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8267c267c.jpeghttps://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6a4d25644.jpeg

I should add, as you know, sks fender stays have to be cut rather precisely because of the black plastic end thing that clips onto the fender and the stay has to fit into perfectly because its a closed unit.
So do think through things well before you cut the stays too short lets say, cuz then you're up the creek.

I generally do not cut the stays shorter unless I really need to. On this bike I bent two of the stays on the front fender downwards instead of cutting them off. They were where I would kick them otherwise. One of these days I will get around to cutting them shorter, but it is a low priority.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...22eab70339.jpg


On the rear, I am assuming you can use the upper mounting points for the rack, lower for fender. At least my 2004 LHT had upper and lower in the back.

Agree with Djb, do not cut the stays too short. If you later put on a tire that is a bit bigger, you might want to move your fender out for more clearance. That is one reason I do not like to cut stays, they might be too short later. A friend of mine bought a new trike a couple years ago. (He is 85 years old, has lost some of his ability to balance a bike with two wheels.) The manufacturer had installed the fenders and cut the stays so short that the stays would have to be replaced to put a wider tire on the back wheel.

Tourist in MSN The bending is smart. For whatever reason I never thought about that but I like the idea.

I believe what I did was just bolt the fender on the same bolt without the safety clips but the p-clamping the fender is a good idea, racks I wouldn't do but fenders aren't load bearing and plenty adjustable so it makes sense.

It would be a little tight on the inside for my liking, P clips look promising though.

I don't mind using the same bolt for a fender and a rack. It works fine for me.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1b6a16f380.jpg

It looks like the issue you have is the front rack. Looking at Surly's tech sheet for the rack, it looks like you could use a 5-7 mm spacer on the fork blade and on the dropout mounting points and get enough clearance to still fit your fender's safety quick release to the front dropout mount.

This is a Tubus Tagra front rack, but I don't know why it would not work on the Surly rack.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e2856846_c.jpg

Rear rack and fender mounted at the same mounting point on the rear dropout.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9f54ef22_c.jpg

If ever it comes to mounting 2 things to the same bolt, I like to treat the bolt like a stud. Bolt through the frame from the backside. Then the rack, & an m5 nut to hold it all tight/secure. Then, on the remaining exposed bolt threads, install the fender bit & another nut to hold the fender bit on.

The issue the OP has is the front rack and fork.

Since several people are describing ways to do it in back, in the future this might be one of those reference threads people go to, so I will describe how I did it on one of my bikes in the back.

My issue was that on my Lynskey the rack and fender mounts are significantly higher than on most frames. Not an issue for the fender but that put the top of the rack way up higher than I wanted it.

First photo when I used the original rack mounting holes on the upper frame mounting points. The pannier hanging rails on the rack are almost as high as the top of most racks on other bikes. This clearly was a bad plan.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...6d7f2e56f0.jpg

Some racks, the lower mounting bolts have to go through the rack in only one spot. My Racktime Addit Rack only had one set of mounting holes, but the hole was through aluminum plate that was flat. After thinking about this for quite a while I decided to drill some new holes through that plate so that I could move the mounting points up higher on the rack. Drilled a hole on each side, was extremely careful with marking and drilling to make sure that both holes are exactly the same position relative to the other holes to make sure the rack is not leaning to one side or rotated when mounted on the bike.

And, the Lynskey frame had two mounting points, upper for rack and lower for fender, I decided to use the lower mounting points for both. And the disc brake did not cause any problem, lots of room for the fender hardware. And in this case the mounting point was high enough above the cassette and chain that the chain will not hit the bolt for fender hardware when shifting onto or off of the smallest sprocket.

This worked well. In the photo below you can see on the drive side that both fender and rack use the lower mounting holes in the frame. On the non-drive side, the rack clears the axle and dropout, that was a consideration when determining where to drill the new mounting holes in the rack. Nylock nuts used, so they will not vibrate loose and fall off.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...44a334f85e.jpg

The clear plastic tubing wrapped around the rack tubing is intended to prevent the pannier from chafing the rack.

Photo below, there is plenty of room for a panhead M5 bolt, fender stays, a few washers on the inside on the non-drive side, plenty of room next to the disc brake rotor. And on the drive side the frame mounting points are well above the chain and cassette so shifting is not impaired.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4c02c77270.jpg

And this looks much better with the pannier hanging rails down lower. Yes, the rack is tilted a bit forward, but I was in a hurry to take the photo, it was nearly sunset and I would lose the light in a few minutes.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...b01c45c127.jpg

I mentioned in a previous post that I generally do not like to cut stays shorter, but the fender stays that are under the rack platform, I did cut those shorter later, they stick up way too high in the above photo.

I got lucky and picked up a nice Nitto rack at a swap meet for $10, I use that for riding around near home and only use the Racktime rack for touring loads with panniers. But that is off topic.

I like this idea, especially if OP plans on loading his Nice Racks(tm) to their limit. ;)

this does make sense, but as I mentioned, I've had no problems using spacers and certainly not light loads on long trips--BUT were using larger volume tires at pressures that allowed a good amount of give, so less jarring than narrower higher pressure tires.

Thanks to all. At this point the P clips seemed like the easiest and most cost effective method. If after putting some time in I need to make changes for whatever reason, I will keep this post in mind and all of the great tips and advice provided.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1c39e52f67.jpg

Looks good.

added bonus is that this gives a very neat and tidy setup.

I put the fender mounts on the outside. I needed spacers to get around the disc brakes.
https://live.staticflickr.com/8291/7...b3601181_c.jpgMotobecane Phantom Outlaw fender strut spacers by curtis corlew, on Flickr

More at https://ccorlew.blogspot.com/2012/08...s-fenders.html

very good photo to illustrate using spacers.
and I agree on the looks of sks fenders, I have a set on my touring bike, silver with the nice lines and transparent bits, and after 5,6 years I find they are still really nice looking. In my case, a nice compliment to a black bike.