just saw these at the local sporting goods store. The look substantial and a little odd. The TRX-1 only has one top mounting attachment to brake bridge hole but the entire construction looks good. I don't understand the cut out for the bottom strut attachment point. The struts are welded to a plate where the eyelet attachment is a solid piece of aluminum within a larger hole, but only welded onto 1/4 of the hole/plate. It may well be strong enough but makes one wonder why bother with the encircling plate of aluminum.



The TRX-2 is even more far out, the lock holder is a good idea but it would have made more sense to have a traditional Blackburn deck cover with a simple support for the lock instead of the aluminum plate graphics doubling as a lock holder.

I can't see your pics but looked them up online.A horrible design.....all struts are straight up and down,the rear struts should be angled inwards to help with side to side movement.....the whole rack is cantilevered off the back of the brazeon......Horrible.Look closely at how a real Blackburn rack is built.

I don't have a problem with a 3 point mount,3 points make stable platforms,that's why tripods don't have 4 legs......

You don't want the welds to be complete,stitch welds let things move around some and spread the stress over a larger area,if it can't move,it will localize stress and break.

I don't like them either. One of them mentioned a weight carrying capacity of 40 lbs. Pshw, the Delta Sherpa racks I like to use are rated for 60 lbs. Not that I would ever want to carry that much...

Actually I like that rack quite well B. is the company I associate with creating the modern rack, and for decades their classic rack design was the most copied rack out there, to the point that for a while they stopped making them. The low rider is also an innovation I associate with them.

Much criticism was laid on the fact that their racks were aluminum, and also fairly light rod. The grommets on the legs were just flattened wire. That said, for any kind of reasonable load, the B rack held up fine for typical rides of a lifetime, like a Transat. Where they were not sufficient was for expedition grade multi decade life on the road stuff. I still have mine from the 80s, and it is on my commuting bike now having done a few months touring duty at one point. While a somewhat non-trendy rack company these days, Blackburn still has a lot of credibility with me.

Anyway, this rack is pretty cheap, and the design looks good to me. I don't know what 14mm gage rod is, presumably something that fits 9mm pannier hooks, real 14mm rod would look like seat stays. The narrow top is kinda odd, but I would be willing to try it. It might hold the load better than wider tops. The only part that worries me is the single point attachment. Admittedly if it is good enough for the brakes, it is probably good enough for the rack. Unfortunately the pics don't show what they have done with it. The double attachments often don't have the right spacing for a given bike. I'm sure I could get this to work, but what kind of nuts and bolts clutter they have provided for the average user is hard to say.

The only other concern I have is the weight. On the one hand some of the criticisms made above could go away if the rods and welding are chunky enough to be stable of themselves. But we are almost at a point with racks were they are being sold on how heavy they are, which is something of a perverse turn of events. I'd try one if I wasn't making my own out of 4130.

One more minor thing. When I buy a nice rack like this, I like to be able to get a front rack to match. The only low rider they sell is not a really nice match to this rack.

"The struts are welded to a plate where the eyelet attachment is a solid piece of aluminum within a larger hole, but only welded onto 1/4 of the hole/plate. It may well be strong enough but makes one wonder why bother with the encircling plate of aluminum."

Aluminum structural welding is an interesting thing. Often one notices that partial welds, virtual tacks, are all that is used. One can't make the comparison to something like a fillet brazed or tigged steel, where a full encircling fillet might be used.

1) The initial loss of strength can be as high as 80% when welded, and some of this returns. What percent loss is there is going to depend on the alloy that was used, and whether the rack is heat treated, but they may be able to escape that step with 6061, and with this construction. While I think we prefer to see a part that is totally welded down, that is not always the good construction. Being aluminum, and anodized, unlike steel, this construction for this use, probably does not risk corrosion. What you might end up with is a tough little slug that is sufficiently bonded, and a plate that had enough material in it that it was not compromised as much as it might have been by the heat affected zone. The plate termination may also be less prone to cracking out with the encircling web.

2) What you have here is a thin plate being welded to a beefy slug. That can end up all melting and dripping onto the floor. I guess some welders are good enough, but it would make sense to allow some extra material just to control the heat. Aluminum is highly heat conductive, and as a result does not build a pool the same way steel does, it is hard to focus heat, so on a delicate area sometimes a little more metal is wise. On the other hand, one weld B. likes to do, is to bring two beefy solid rods together, and stitch the two rods down with a heavy pass, but this isn't that kind of parity in materials. And even when they do that, they often only hit one side.

3) One of the real problems with racks, is that the eyelets on the bike are rarely aligned. There are tools to align them in place, and to re-cut them to spec, but this is one of those little details you are probably only going to get on some custom bikes. So while it sounds nice to make your grommet as stout as possible, sometimes all you get for your trouble is a lot of built in stress when the bolts as hardened down. This construction allows a little bit of settling for the slug without cranking in a lot of stress.

Or they were just trying to save some time and consumables...

40 pounds is pretty sparse... not to mention the rack itself is 2.7. My topeak is almost half that and has a capacity of 55, and is half the price. The blackburn looks smaller too..What accounts for the extra $30?

Edit: Nevermind, I realized the word "Ultimate" always deserves a 100% price increase

I think it is actually the Penultimate rack. There is one at 1.3 kilos.

There isn't an international rack rating agency out there, so I would take some of that with a grain of salt. Many a time people were given rides on the old racks which they rate also at 40 pounds despite being a lot less beefy.

Maybe the cost thing is partly for the fact that Blackburn didn't rip the design off Topeak, while Topeak appears to have made liberal use of inspiration gathered from Blackburn, or more likely someone else who ripped off Blackburn.