Hey all,
I’m building up a Crust Evasion and I’m trying to figure out front rack/bag/fork sitcheation. I’m going to run a big handlebar bag (Ron’s chest, bags by bird, roadrunner jammer or the like) that will most likely require rack support because of weight/single track riding.
I’m looking for advice on front racks that use lowrider mounts and leave fork blade brazeons free for cage mounts. From what I can tell the Nitto M18 would work, but it’s only rated for like 10 lbs. my thought there is that a lot of the weight would be on the handlebars and the rack would just be support, so I wouldn’t have trouble running the Nitto M18. But also, maybe the lowrider mount isn’t strong enough for singletracky stuff
Anyone have any recommendations or experience using a front racks as handlebar bag support and running fork mounts/cages on fork blades? Here’s a rig from Crust IG that I would like to replicate but can’t ID the rack.
Thanks everyone!
by theosnowdon
5 Comments
Check out the OMM Elkhorn. It should leave you room to use the fork mounts but it also has its own so you can run cages directly on it. Just switched my wife’s Kona Sutra from using fork-mounted gear to the Elkhorn because of speed wobbles.
It also rates up to 25lbs.
https://oldmanmountain.com/product/elkhorn-bike-rack/
I got an algyn diamond,
Why not use a handlebar mounted support like the one from Carradice? You can also probably supplement with a rack like the M18. Also, since you mentioned the M18, I’d counter with the M1 or the subtle variant “Mark’s Rack”. That one is basically the same but has four struts. The rated weight limit is actually lower, but I can tell you I’ve loaded that one with all sorts of random crap, and usually load it up with firewood once I get close to a campsite.
I’ve been doing this for 50,000+ km without any problems and I put a lot of weight in the front bag, often 10kg+.
I used to mount the strut to the braze-on above the QR axle but it interfered with a cargo cage.
I now mount them to the lowrider? mount on the inner face of the fork blade. I suspect this is what has been done in your photo as the strut appears to be cranked.
[Tumbleweed racks](https://tumbleweed.cc/collections/racks) give you more mounts, I use two of their pannier racks on my bike.
https://preview.redd.it/6c8aj6syb9ng1.png?width=4080&format=png&auto=webp&s=25f123a06015ff87c225b434f2fc99095d016832
Old Man Mountain [Pizza Rack](https://oldmanmountain.com/product/pizza-rack/) and [Elkhorn](https://oldmanmountain.com/product/elkhorn-bike-rack/) do as well.