I bought a new bike rack! A NEW new bike rack.
Old rack:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]9633[/ATTACH]
NEW rack:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]9634[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]9635[/ATTACH]
So after riding around with my seatpost rack and trunk bag for the past 2 weeks, I continued looking around for other solutions since I didn’t like the way it affected the bike handling and the aesthetics. I was always lukewarm on it anyhow. So I picked this up. It’s the Axiom Streamliner DLX Disc rack. It threads onto the rear wheel quick release skewer and can be mounted to the rear brake caliper post or seatstay eyelets. I didn’t want to use the brake attachment and the single metal bar, so I ordered a seatpost clamp that had mounting points on it. I bought the axiom DLX 30 pannier set too. Total cost was about $100 for everything. It was only a few more dollars than my seatpost rack/bag combo. Picked the disc model of this rack for mainly because it came with the two arms for mounting to the frame eyelets and not just the single metal bar for the brake attachment (like the non-disc version).
Thoughts: Wow. This is such a big improvement. The lower center of gravity doesn’t affect handling like the seatpost one, With that I could feel the sway of it with the bag. Even with only one pannier on the bike loaded, the handling felt very normal. Installation is quick and I can take the rack off easily for weekend rides. The panniers have a lot more room for carrying stuff to work, and it doesn’t look like by bike is riding around in a constant state of arousal. I can also go back to swinging my leg over the frame to get on the bike.
I would highly recommend this set up if someone was looking to add a rack to a road bike that has no mounting points. It’s rock stable, not very heavy and it was super easy to install. I guess now I start shopping for fenders I can mount with no chainstay bridge…
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