Made for use with Tubus racks, the Tubus Quick Release Adaptermakes it possible to mount a rack securely on a bike without threaded braze on tabs at the dropouts. The package comes with two brackets meant to be attached to the lower two bolt holes on Tubus racks. The supplied skewer is then threaded through the bracket on one side, a shim, (also supplied) the hub axle, and the shim and bracket on the other side and tightened down with the standard cam lever. There are shims provided of two different thicknesses, and the adapter will work on any rear dropout spacing.
Keep in mind that, if your bike doesn’t have eyelets at the dropouts, chances are it wont have eyelets on the seatstays and some sort of clamping arrangement will need to be made there. Tubus makes a stainless steel clamp with a thick and firm cushioning liner, in various sizes, just for this purpose.
The two brackets are made to attach to the two holes in the bottom of Tubus racks.
The replacement skewer runs through the hub axle and the brackets. Shims are supplied to go over the skewer for different widths of rear frame spacing.
As can be seen in this last photo, the brackets cause the rack to be mounted a little bit farther back than if it were attached to the braze on eyelets. This might also be a good solution for bikes with shorter chainstays when the pannier placement results in heel strike.
We just received the Tour-It rack and the Travel-It front and Travel-It rear panniers from Racktime for the Bike Touring News Store. Ortlieb, Tubus and Racktime all come from the same company with the Racktime products intended for those who don’t want to pay Ortlieb and Tubus prices.
Racktime Tour-It rear rack
Naturally, as with any new gear, I had to fiddle around with it and I mounted the rack on Norm, my Surly Cross Check bike and installed one of the rear panniers. I wanted to see what the hardware was like and how well the bags mounted and also I was eager to see how the bags differ from the Ortieb back and front rollers.
The Racktime racks are made of aluminum as opposed to the tubular chrome moly or stainless steel of the Tubus offerings. This rack actually weighed a few ounces more than the Tubus Cosmo stainless steel rack even though the two have nearly identical configurations. Overall the mounting of the rack was simple and straight forward. Screws attach through a hole in the welded plate on the bottom of either side of the rack and into the dropout eyelets on the bike. The spacing was perfect for the 135mm rear blades on the Surly and I didn’t need any shims and there was no prying or spreading of the rack legs either.
The braces which secure the upper platform to the bike are meant to be attached to eyelets on the seat stays, but could be attached to clamps if no eyelets are provided. The other end of the braces then thread through an eyebolt which in turn is bolted to the rack platform. Even though this is a versatile setup, if I was going to make this a permanent attachment I would bend the struts in order to achieve a better alignment. Or else I would cut them shorter. As it was, the vertical sides of the rack interfered and I was unable to tighten things down completely.
All the hardware needed for the Racktime Tour-It rear rack. Standard bolts, eyebolts, and two stays.The stays or braces bolt to the seat stays and thread through the eyebolts. For a permanent installation, I would either cut them shorter of bend them so they didn't hit the vertical leg of the rack.
I like theminimal hardware on this rack since the fewer pieces and bolts to come loose the better when on the road. The top platform is wide enough to actually be used to carry a sleeping bag or tent and the lower set of rails allow for the attachment of panniers in such a way that they won’t interfere with a load on the top platform. The little pump pegs on the left leg of the rack are a cool idea, but I am unaware of any pumps that will fit on them. I was told that this rack is made as original equipment on some bikes for the European market, and they have their own proprietary pumps. The rack also will work with the Racktime SNAPit components. The rack is rated to carry up to 30 kilograms and the suggested retail is about $65.00.
I remember riding through downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada on my first self supported bike tour with homemade rear panniers which, when the bike hit a rough patch, bounced around and came un-hooked from the rack. Luckily they didn’t fall completely off because the gang of homeless men accosting me from a vacant lot as I rode past would have been happy to relieve me from my load and probably my bike if I had stopped. Needless to say, since that tour I am a little more finicky about my equipment.
On my up-coming tour I am using front and rear racks made by Nitto in Tokyo, Japan. These are made of nickel plated, tubular Chrome-moly steel with simple and solid attachment hardware.
The Nitto Campee front rack sans the low rider attachments.Highly adjustable aluminum struts allow for a custom fit.The lower leg of the Campee rack has an integral spacer to clear the fork blade.Daruma bolt Daruma bolt attached to rack and strut.
The Nitto Campee front rack comes with detachable low-rider panels for attaching panniers. I have removed those, because I don’t have low rider panniers. The panniers and bags I willbe using are the subject of another post. The aluminum struts attaching the rack to the fork eyelets in these photos are sold as separate accessories. The struts which come with the rack are made to attach to cantilever brake posts.
This seems like as good a time as any to look at a couple different fork blade/eyelet/brake combinations. Eyelets are the small, threaded holes drilled into the sides of the fork or into tabs which are then welded onto the dropout (the piece on the end of the fork blade…where the wheel axle attaches). Some bikes have one eyelet on the fork dropout and some have two. There is only one on each dropout on my bike, so the rack and the fender strut clamps will share the same hole. A bike with two dropout eyelets allows a little more flexibility in attaching racks and fenders.
A fork blade dropout(from a Surly Long Haul Trucker) with two eyelets
Not all bikes have eyelets on the forks. What? How can that be? Well, some people don’t want to carry stuff on their bikes, believe it or not. For the person who actually uses their bike, however, the more eyelets the better. OK so how about the mid-fork eyelets? On most touring bikes these are located to facilitate “low rider” racks such as the Tubus Tara or the Tubus Duo. And on really well designed touring bikes, like Surly’s Long Haul Trucker, there are two mid-fork eyelets on each fork blade…one on the outside and one on the inside. The Tubus Duo was actually made with that bike in mind. On some bikes, like my Rivendell, the eyelets are located higher on the fork, and these will not work with low-rider only racks. Bikes such as Rivendell, with higher fork mount braze-on eyelets seem to work best with the Nitto type hardware and designs.
The fork on the left has inner and outer eyelets in the fork blade. The other fork blade has braze-on eyelets mounted higher.
Many touring bikes will also be designed for cantilever style brakes. These brakes are mounted on special posts which are welded on to the fork blades. Some racks like Old Man Mountain brand Cold Springs and Ultimate Low Rider models attach directly to these posts with provided replacement bolts. Others, like some Nitto models attach to these posts with a special, double ended brake bolt or stud.
The fork in the foreground has posts for cantilever style brakes. The brakes on the other fork are center mount, sidepulls. The Nitto Campee rack on a bike with cantilever brakes. The struts would bolt on to a stud (pictured below) which replaces the brake bolt.This is the stud which replaces the cantilever brake bolt.The struts are adjusted to line up with the brake bolt, which would be replaced with the double ended stud.
I got a little carried away and off topic with this post, but it felt like a good time to get into some rack details. Hopefully it might give you, good readers, some things on which to cogitate. In the next post I talk about my dual Schmidt E6 headlight setup, about which I am unnaturally excited.
