Using Ortlieb back roller on a front rack?
 

I am a heavy guy and I carry two packed Ortlieb backrollers on my bike on my daily commute. One with office clothes, tools, spare inner tube and one with my laptop bag. Since basically all the weight is on the back and I am probably way above the weight limit of the rear wheel, I like to move some of that weight to the front. I wonder if I can use my back rollers on a front rack. I have the mounting points for a front rack on my bike. One bolt on the side of the fork and two more available mounting point at the bottom. These are 700c tires and the frame is a 61.5cm (24") frame.
I am not sure a low rider rack will work with these tall bags. I think they might be too low but I could be wrong.
These setups seem to be higher and this is what I am looking for:
Not sure what type of rack he is using:
https://maxthecyclist.wordpress.com/...oller-classic/

http://www.bikertony.org/Buttons/The...cud(Chile).jpg
http://theradavist.com/wp-content/up...7-1335x889.jpg

On your first link you can look at the "my bicycles" link and see the rack listed. Racktime Top-it front.

Tubus Smarti front rack will fit the fork you have.. https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...s.php?id=56543

It's Steel tubing. a 'mid rider'.

Bruce Gordon has an even stronger one, it fits further back on either side of the fork.

more over the steering axis .. another non Low rider.. as offered on his BLT-X, a 26" wheel tourer.



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Looks interesting but pricey.

Thanks for pointing that out. I guess I just didn't look too far down. But not sure if it is still available.

I also stumbled across this one:
Extreme Front Rack Tall Boy - 29er
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tquid/3471858469
But this is pricey too.

Thanks for the links. I keep digging.

The Jahnd (sp) racks of LowRider style sit higher on the fork than the original Blackburns. I've never had the rear Ortleibs, just the smaller fronts but I am guessing you could run the rears on the Jahnd's as long as you accept that in taking hard corners, they will drag. (Ortleibs take that kind of abuse on an occasional basis very well, abssorbing road rash far better than I do!)

I am a huge fan of LowRiders and putting weight there. Actually makes bikes easier to ride and control in snow and other iffy surfaces as well as not affecting the bike or steering at all when you come out of the saddle to climb. The piece that is different is that the front tire and rim get far more abuse and need to be bigger with more pressure (the tire) and strong (the rim and build).

Ben

I actually decided on the Surly front rack. This has various options to hang my panniers. Plus it has a mounting point up front for my dynamo powered light.
Hopefully I can get it all set up at this weekend. Still need to get my rear wheel re-spoked.
Right now I am using my backup bike which is a 1980s 3-speed Gazelle and I am using my backrollers on a Soma front rack. I can hang them so that the bottom of the panniers almost line up with the hub. So I have plenty of room underneath.

I have carried the ortlieb back-rollers on a Surly front nice-rack. I also have the rear nice-rack and was able to set the clips on the ortliebs up so that they work well front or rear without having to adjust the clips. I think maybe they swap R-L when going F-R...but can't recall for sure...been a while. I'd do this when I needed to use the top of the rear rack for large items, which interfered with the ortliebs.

I have found that the bike still quite manageable even with a lot of weight in the front panniers, provided it is snugly contained. If it "flops" around, then it can be a problem. Side-side inbalance didn't seem to bother me much, so it was better to have one pannier snugly full than two half-filled and floppy.

I have been using my backrollers for a while now on the front rack. They work great with the Surly rack. It took me some time to get used to the weight up front but I like it much more since the bike feels way more balanced with my heavy weight on the saddle and the panniers on the front.
I actually do swap them from left to right. Meaning the right one on the rear is now the left one on the front.
I still have the first gen Ortliebs which are not symmetrical. Meaning they are more angled on one side and only have a reflector on the straight side. This way I have the reflector at the front when mounted on the front rack.

So you got it sorted... Note the mounting pieces on Surly Front racks are their weak point....

There is roughly 4cm further height from bottom to hook on the rear bags than the front.

there have been a couple cycletourists loading just the front of their bikes, most with rear racks load the back.


I use a front rack on my low trail, small wheel bike friday ..




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Yes it works great. The advantage of my old Ortlieb panniers is, that I can adjust the height of the metal hook at the bottom to fit them to different types of racks.

Hi Kevbo,
can you provide more information / images for how you mounted the back rollers onto the surly front rack?

did you buy an extra (clip? for lack of better word) for the bottom?

Blackburn Outpost racks will also work. The QR skewers are the load bearing support, the fork and seat stay clamps just keep the rack from pivoting back and forth.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...47061d12bc.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5e95ff9cdd.jpg
These are the Ortlieb Front Roller Classics Camera angle jacked-up the perspective (bags are 14-inches tall)

1. I'd have a spare skewer or two on-hand. They are not as strong as the axle. I can see where mounting an accessory to the outside of the dropout would mean the skewer would have to take the load of the accessory, but with as large of a load as you can fit on that huge front rack I would be worried about the skewers.

2. The bottom support (skewer) isn't the only load bearing point. It may take the most, but the upper supports should not be neglected. The reason being is your load will have a lot of inertia when moving. Two examples of where this inertia will be at play are A. when you turn the bars/wheel at slow speed rapidly to try to maintain balance, B. if you have to stop fast and jam on the brakes. The weight in motion has to go somewhere. Hopefully that is transferred to resistance in your moving the bars side to side maintaining balance going slow or your brakes when you have to stop fast. If a weak upper attachment decides to give up the ghost your load will move and mess up other things.

For what it is worth - on my long tours last Fall (one longer route split in to 2 segments) - I tied 550 cord support lines off my 2nd stem to support extra stuff that I tied up front that didn't fit in the panniers. For a time I carried 2 gallon jugs of water up front with 2 extra drysacs (1 sac and 1 jug each side). The weight was supported from above - off the 2nd stem. Then all of it was cinched up against the pannier with another run of 550 cord. This kept the load from swinging too much. It worked really well. There was still some movement of the extra "stuff" up front, but it rode well and I would surely do it again if I needed to.

I have not tried to put my rear panniers on my front rack. I forget what rack I have. Both front/rear are made by tubus and the front is low - 2 piece. It does not go up and over the front wheel. That is something I think I would prefer - it would be a stronger set up to me and with the heavy loading I've done up front (getting back to the movement of all the "stuff" mentioned above) - I am a bit concerned that the loading might cause too much stress and something could be problematic down the road. So far so good, though.

There are a couple other threads I've had going here in the Utility forum on trailer ideas. I've been working towards getting a trailer set up for hauling stuff instead of putting everything on the bike. I still think there is a place for panniers in my world of cycling. For tours involving a lot of camping and more than about 3 days I'd err towards the trailer as that will give me a lot more freedom with space and keep a significant amount of extra weight off the bike.

[QUOTE=KC8QVO;22253621] 1.They are not as strong as the axle. I can see where mounting an accessory to the outside of the dropout would mean the skewer would have to take the load of the accessory, but with as large of a load as you can fit on that huge front rack I would be worried about the skewers.[QUOTE]
I do not fit large loads on the "huge" front rack. These are generally grocery shopping accessories.


[QUOTE=KC8QVO;22253621] 2. The bottom support (skewer) isn't the only load bearing point. It may take the most, but the upper supports should not be neglected. The reason being is your load will have a lot of inertia when moving. Two examples of where this inertia will be at play are A. when you turn the bars/wheel at slow speed rapidly to try to maintain balance, B. if you have to stop fast and jam on the brakes.[QUOTE]
No worries, my cadence is 50-max, I stay in climbing gears (22T/28T-40T). Not fast, but I get my grocery shopping done.


[QUOTE=KC8QVO;22253621]I have not tried to put my rear panniers on my front rack. I forget what rack I have. Both front/rear are made by tubus and the front is low - 2 piece. It does not go up and over the front wheel. [Quote]
Keep it light, my small bags limit my weight, as I keep each bags content to less that 3-4lbs at all time.

The ultralight backpacking community have easily obtainable pack weights of 15-lbs including the backpack itself.

One concept that has always intrigued me is to get a designer to plot out a way to do a single cut-out of coroplast 10-mm. One could simply cut-out the template, do some folds and secure with Tie-Raps and then hot-glue the one-side which needs joining and the bottom (with flaps on three sides) to create a waterproof lightweight/replaceable pannier on the road.

7th paragraph down in article...
Cardboard Panniers (no longer made)