Hi all,
Haven't posted for a while as haven't been on the bike much due to a knee injury.. I purchased a new rear rack last month (£15 delivered, from SJS Cycles on eBay) so this is kind of a review and also a little incident I had...
I wanted a rack for carrying my bulky parcels to the Royal Mail sorting office as balancing mailing sacks was starting to get a bit tricky and dangerous. I wanted a rack that wasn't too heavy and was secure and strong enough to hold several kg. This rack weighs 690g and claims to support 25kg. Bit heavier than I would like, but it looks good so I decided to go for it.
The rack took a quite a while to fit (about 40 minutes) and I wasn't sure it would even fit at all as there wasn't hardly any clearance from the mounting holes on frame and the rack wouldn't reach to the seat post.. bit of adjusting though and I managed to make it fit and secured everything tight (or so I thought).
I live in a 2nd floor flat so I have to carry my bike down loads of stairs, hence my concern about adding extra weight to the bike.. I have to say, the rack *does* make a noticeable difference to the overall weight of the bike even without any load on it. When it was loaded up with about 2kg of parcels I noticed a significant drag/slowing down on my bike under power, particularly up hills, which was surprisingly.
Anyway the first week everything went fine..the rack was a great relief not having to faff around mailing sacks. However on the second week the damn thing came loose and I heard this loud clacking noise, I felt around behind my seat and to my horror the rack was gone and so were all my parcels!!! I stopped, looked around, and saw the rack had completely come away from the seat post but was still attached to the frame and had fallen over the back wheel! I had a rack trailer!!! Amazingly it was only supported on side as the other side had come completely unbolted. And even more amazingly all my parcels were still bunjee'd up on it and it was clear of the road. The rack and parcels were vertical behind the wheel.
The annoying clacking noise was due to the loose side of the rack arm knocking against my gear cog-set/chain and narrowly missing the wheel spokes!!!. Could of been a serious accident. Not good. Luckily I had some tools on me so I removed them and continued my journey with my "rack trailer". Hehe.
I've had to remove the thing now and can't find all the bits to put it back on. Doh. Think there is a moral here somewhere..don't be an idiot and ride with a semi-secure rack?!
From rack:
To trailer:
Haven't posted for a while as haven't been on the bike much due to a knee injury.. I purchased a new rear rack last month (£15 delivered, from SJS Cycles on eBay) so this is kind of a review and also a little incident I had...
I wanted a rack for carrying my bulky parcels to the Royal Mail sorting office as balancing mailing sacks was starting to get a bit tricky and dangerous. I wanted a rack that wasn't too heavy and was secure and strong enough to hold several kg. This rack weighs 690g and claims to support 25kg. Bit heavier than I would like, but it looks good so I decided to go for it.
The rack took a quite a while to fit (about 40 minutes) and I wasn't sure it would even fit at all as there wasn't hardly any clearance from the mounting holes on frame and the rack wouldn't reach to the seat post.. bit of adjusting though and I managed to make it fit and secured everything tight (or so I thought).
I live in a 2nd floor flat so I have to carry my bike down loads of stairs, hence my concern about adding extra weight to the bike.. I have to say, the rack *does* make a noticeable difference to the overall weight of the bike even without any load on it. When it was loaded up with about 2kg of parcels I noticed a significant drag/slowing down on my bike under power, particularly up hills, which was surprisingly.
Anyway the first week everything went fine..the rack was a great relief not having to faff around mailing sacks. However on the second week the damn thing came loose and I heard this loud clacking noise, I felt around behind my seat and to my horror the rack was gone and so were all my parcels!!! I stopped, looked around, and saw the rack had completely come away from the seat post but was still attached to the frame and had fallen over the back wheel! I had a rack trailer!!! Amazingly it was only supported on side as the other side had come completely unbolted. And even more amazingly all my parcels were still bunjee'd up on it and it was clear of the road. The rack and parcels were vertical behind the wheel.
The annoying clacking noise was due to the loose side of the rack arm knocking against my gear cog-set/chain and narrowly missing the wheel spokes!!!. Could of been a serious accident. Not good. Luckily I had some tools on me so I removed them and continued my journey with my "rack trailer". Hehe.
I've had to remove the thing now and can't find all the bits to put it back on. Doh. Think there is a moral here somewhere..don't be an idiot and ride with a semi-secure rack?!
From rack:
To trailer:
Last edited:
My knee is nearly better now so I'm hoping to go on some long exploration rides and do some filming again. The weather is nice at the moment for it.
