A couple of new racks
The first one was made by Mark Vande Kamp and I for his Curt Goodrich bike. It is a low-rider which bolts on quickly for overnight/couple of day type trips. Mark has a touring bike too, but prefers riding the Goodrich. We made special fender mount bolts to allow the quick install to happen even though the bike only has one set of dropout eyelets. I posted about those in a previous blog entry.
The second rack is a minimalist handlebar rack that I built for my IvyCycles. I was going for simple lines and limited joints. The design is copied from an idea that Rory Cameron had about a year back, and it is designed to work well with handlebar bags that have Ortlieb pannier hooks mounted on the bottom (that is why the front cross-bar is a little lower than the platform). I’m using it with my Ravenna bag now and will also use it with an Acorn handlebar bag in the future. My headlight barely fits with this one, so I need to make a new headlight for this bike too. This would be a good design to copy for someone making their first handlebar bag rack and was made with exactly 4′ of tubing.
Alex, when you linked to the Acorn bag/website — did you mean to link to their upcoming “Boxy Rando Bag” [http://www.acornbags.com/boxybag.html]?
Hey Alex,
Any thoughts on the size of the Acorn bag? I want to get a front bag for my not yet put togther Ira Ryan, but I”m not too sure about the size. Any size should work on my rack and I don”t have anything planned/figured out decaleur-wise and don”t yet know the height from my bar/stem to the rack. I was leaning toward Berthoud since I want black, but this Acorn will be less than half as much and they do very nice work.
Thanks, Doug
Yes, it”ll be the boxy bag. Oops. I”ll fix that soon.
Doug — I also have a huge bag, and the Acorn seems like it”ll be a nice smaller size. It isn”t small, it isn”t big, it seems like a happy medium.
Looks like the small rack has a new attachment style – a mitered bit of tube instead of flat stock. Reminds me of what I”ve seen called a Breezer-style dropout, is there another term for it?
I like the Ortlieb hooks idea, what about the snap-button thingys you used on an earlier rack? Just two different solutions, or is there an advantage to one over the other?
Doug, I think Velo-Orange is coming out with a black canvas front bag soon as well. See http://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2008/11/miscellaneous-bits_25.html
I think the Ortlieb Hooks work a little better for bags which have a fixed shape. The snap things work better for bags which are a bit floppy. Both work well.
I don”t know the right term for that type of attachment, but it is like a Breezer-style dropout. I originally wanted to get a lathe so that I could make these, then kind of forgot about them until this excellent example came across on the framebuilders list:
http://www.clockworkbikes.com/rack_4.html
They are pretty easy to make.
It looks like the VO and Acorn bags are the same size, both are 28×20x15cm. In my emails Ron at Acorn has been a very pleasant guy to deal with, and I”m excited to finally buy one of their products.
Alex, After you build the racks do you do the painting or do you take them somewhere else to have it done. I”m curious to know what is the best paint/method to have that done.
I really like both these racks, particularly the minimalist one. Does the second one work with bus racks, as the one you built with Rory last year did? It looks like it should. I”ve also got a Ravenna bag (with custom colors!) and want to finally have a rack built for it now that I”ve decided that the bike it will go one will be a custom.
that is a nice large radius bend on the lowrider rack. what did you use for that?
Dan — The bend was done with a 3″ diameter pulley off of my drill press. There are similar pulleys for sale at most hardware stores, and under $10 will usually get you one with 2″ to 5″ in 1″ steps.
Arthur — The rack does work with the busses. I”ve used it on the 545 a couple of times already. I don”t think it could be much longer and work however.
Scott — I either let them rust or get them powdercoated. At the moment I”m building up a collection of racks to powdercoat and will take them all in at the same time. The local place (Seattle Powdercoating) is a lot cheaper (per rack) if I bring a lot of racks than one rack at a time.