Front Rack Conundrum
 

Hey,

I'm going to be doing some long distance loaded touring, and I'm looking at how to mount a front rack on my bike (miyata 610).

The bike has eyelets at the base of the fork where it connects to the hub, but no eyelets farther up the fork where a front rack usually fastens.

It seems like have two options: 1) mount a rack that fastens to the fork without physically being bolted to the upper part, or 2) solder eyelets onto the upper part of the fork so I can bolt the front rack to it.

The problem with option 1 is that the front rack won't be able to carry as much weight and might need to be adjusted quiet often. The problem with option 2 is that I'd be doing the soldering myself, which could prove difficult (I've not done much soldering).

Any thoughts or opinions are most welcome!!

-Mo

First, it's important to establish what kind of material your fork is made from. The key question is whether or not is is carbon fiber.

If not carbon fiber, then a simple "P" clamp will solve your problem. You can either rig something up from what you find at the hardware store, or you can order one made for the purpose. Talk to Wayne at The Touring Store.

i also have a miyata 610 and had a similar dilemma. i ended up using a NOS blackburn rear rack i scored for very inexpensive as a front rack. mostly because of cost and versatility. nice front racks seemed to be fairly expensive and some of them can only be used with two smallish front panniers. gives me the option of mounting my two panniers up front or mounting two panniers in the rear and two up front if i'm doing a long solo tour. i've also hauled lots of stuff on top of the front rack for short and long distances. its been working really well so far.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26700977@N08/4354150689/

^I wouldn't use p-clips on aluminum either.... Maybe it's just me being paranoid. Steel and Titanium should be fine though.

Otherwise, you may want to consider a high-rider or platform rack. Not necessarily ideal, but it'll still carry your stuff. The old-style Blackburn racks are designed to attach behind the fork crown and at the lower fork eyelets (the ones typically used for fenders), but they can be pricey. Soma makes a lookalike (http://store.somafab.com/somialfrra.html).

I use this style front rack and find it very, very solid. Tho I haven't tried it with 20 lbs on each side, since that would equal the weight of my entire load, I have no doubt it would handle that much. Most of the weight is supported at the eyelets of course. The p clamps and cross bar stop any tendency to sway. The panniers must use hanging hooks, ruling out Orblied type attachment systems for this rack. Other p clamp racks would likely accomodate Orblieds. Check with www.thetouringstore.com about this.

Soldering attach points would be more elegant, and open your rack options up a lot, but I don't see how that alone would make the carrying capacity any larger. Be a bunch of trouble too, including ruining the finish on the fork.

its a steel fork.

use P-clamps and any lowrider for the cheapest solution...
there are also racks which bolt onto canti posts- cant recall if the 610 has those.

I really don't think that brazing rack fittings to your fork should be your first experience with framebuilding. I would suggest p-clamps, but it shouldn't cost you too much to have a framebuilder do the job. $25-35 before paint sounds about right.

I don't think you can solder steel to steel nor would you want to. Just get a lowrider and use clamps. Tubus Tara works and it has some clamp adapters.

OMM Sherpa front rack for the win:

http://www.oldmanmountain.com/Pages/...700c-29in.jpeg

Another option would be a new fork. cheaper than acquiring the soldering stuff. Though there are lots of good options. The balckburn with the u bolts is a proven design and has survived round the world trips, or thereabouts.

Stop.

Blackburn, Vetta, Jandd and most low rider racks came with polymer coated U-bolts that attached mid-point on the fork for those bikes without braze-ons. Many racks still do (Nashbars front rack for suspension forks, as an example). They worked, and continue to work just fine (I have seen bikes/racks with 1000's of miles under their belt set up this way). If you have an LBS that has been around more than 20-years, they ought to keep them in thier rack-hardware-junk-drawer. If not, you can find the U-bolts at a decent harware store, though they are not poly coated (use bar/electrical/duct tape instead).

I can take a picture if you are still confused.

I would NOT recommend soldering, welding, brazing, gluing, taping, sticking, fuzing, or otherwise screwing-up your fork for the sake of a front rack.

I say no to soldering, brazing, welding, drilling, etc. Use P-clamps with Nashbar lowriders for the cheap but just-fine option. (I just bought some Nashbar Lowriders for my son. They seem identical to the Blackburn Lowriders I used for years, and which never gave me any trouble.) I just checked Nashbar's site and didn't see them so maybe they're out. Nashbar (and REI) seem to take items off their websites and later put them back, depending on their stocks. However, as someone else mentioned, something similar is available at Amazon:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...1L._SS500_.jpg

If you want to spend some more money, go with Tubus or Jandd (or others I'm not as familiar with?) with P-clamps, or the Old Man Mountain rack pictured above.

Here is a heavy duty bomb proof P-clamp type thing made by Tubus.
IMO standard P-clamps looks quite fragile. I've never used them though so i wouldn't know how they would hold up with your front panniers fully loaded and going off road.

I used this on my partners Allegro Tour. If your forks a round not oval then this is a great, full proof option.

http://www.actionoutdoors.co.uk/shop...ubus/72100.jpg

that looks great. how is the front one attached to the top of the fork by the brakes?

through the fork front brake bridge hole. look for a rack that connects with a single "L" bracket not the ones with two connecting arms. i updated the existing bolt and nut that connected the front fender with a slightly longer one. the front fender connector is fed on from the rear of the fork and the rack L bracket from the front. i used an extra nut to space out the L bracket to clear the bottom headset cup. i drilled one additional hole into the L bracket so there would be two bolts connecting the rack to the L bracket. that's it.