Yeah. That would make the rack easier to put on and remove. smh.

Right you are 3speed - the bike was mounted in the bike stand and the rack appeared perfectly level - when I took it out it had a sad lean...remounted it in the slot instead. 1986 Schwinn Voyageur with Vetta Italian rear rack and Jim Blackburn FL-1 Low Rider front rack.

It's nice to have the option, but P-clamps are perfectly acceptable as a substitute. I was skeptical about P-clamps before I used them, but after several years of sterling service with heavy loads on my front rack (including regular asymmetrical loads) and no slipping or failures, I'm quite happy with P-clamps. If you have larger diameter fork blades or happen to have some scrap aluminum* and an old inner tube, you can make your own P-clamps. That's what I've been using. Just used some factory ones (PDW brand) to mount a rear rack to my girlfriends city bike too.

If I liked everything else about a frame, the lack of mid-fork bosses wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. That said, of course it's a more aesthetically pleasing set up to bolt directly to the fork rather than having P-clamps.

* IIRC, the scrap sheet of aluminum I picked up from the hardware store was about ten dollars and bigger than a sheet of paper, which is more p-clamps and fender brackets than I'll likely ever need!

I've wondered about this. I've used a Old Man Mountain rack that attaches the same way (the now discontinued Cold Springs model, but very similar), and I actually bent a few skewers early on before I switched to heavier duty tandem skewers. Admittedly, I was doing things to that rack it was never designed for*, but I think it gives us an idea of where the force gets sent in racks designed that way.


* This was probably my lightest passenger:

I'm not certain if you're being serious or sarcastic since it's difficult to tell with text and I'm not familiar with "smh," but I'll go with sarcastic. If you understood what I'm saying, it would serve your purpose exactly with eliminating the need for a wrench. ...Though I guess in your situation since you're using those Tubus clamps rather than u-bolts or p-clamps, you'd be attaching the nuts to the clamp, not the rack. The nut would be permanently fixed to the clamp and then you'd only need a hex wrench to remove the bolt. It would be basically as if the clamp were threaded on the half with the nut.

As stated, I do use P-Clamps now ("I use a Nitto Big front rack that attaches up top with P-Clamps.") and am looking for something that might possibly be easier. Don't see how welding tiny nuts to small clamps, with the holes lined up perfectly, would be a practical solution. If the welds were to fail, I would be in the same situation. I would rather simply carry the wrench if I need to remove the rack for travel or leave it at home on faith that things won't come loose, as I did a few weeks ago.