racks

Racks are used to attach panniers to the bike frame; without them you can’t carry much stuff. The ACA has a great article, but here’s a semi summary. Frames designed with touring in mind will have attachment points built in to bolt both front and back racks directly to the frame. While there are various schemes to attach rear racks to bikes that don’t have these points built in, it would make me nervous to be adding a good amount of force to a point on a frame that wasn’t designed with that force in mind.

For short tours, or if you’re willing to travel very light, or without a stove and cookset, it’s possible to get away with a rear rack/panniers only. I’d actually recommend against this though unless you’re traveling extremely light. Most touring bikes will already have a 35/65ish front/back weight distribution (because of where the saddle is). Putting additional weight in back will make the bike handle noticeably poorly. It’s worth having a front rack/panniers and placing the heaviest gear there to move the distribution closer to 50/50. Note that there is a ton of stuff on the internet that says that front racks/panniers make bikes unstable and impacts steering. This is exactly opposite my experience and that of everybody else with experience I’ve talked to. Climbing at low speeds with heavy gear on the rear rack only is miserable; the bike will try to twist from side to side with each pedal. Cornering can also be scary as the front wheel has relatively little weight and therefore less traction. The first few hours with a heavily loaded front rack and lightly loaded rear take a bit of getting used to, but the bike corners and climbs MUCH more reliably once you adjust.

Any decent quality rear rack ought to be fine; as far as I can tell there’s not much variation in rear rack design. There’s much more variability in front rack design. I can specifically recommend against the style of front rack that attaches at three points: the top of the fork and halfway down each fork blade. I had one of these, and I can tell you that if the attachment at the top of the fork fails, the rack will pivot down until it rests on the front wheel, at which point the bike stops and the rider keeps going.

Far better are this style of rack . There are four attachment points and one failure isn’t catastrophic. Additionally, the panniers are mounted lower on the fork, lowering the center of gravity.