I have an Old Man Mountain Divide for my rear rack on my Haanjo. Also have an Old Man Mountain Pizza Rack that I use as the front rack on my commuter bike. They are both axle mounted which strengthens the whole setup. The Divide also has a lower pannier top rail that keeps the top of the rack more accessible for mounting stuff on top.
My only issue with their rack system is price. The racks themselves aren’t cheap and adding the thru axle brings the price up even more. I decided I’d rather spend more once rather than end up having issues while away from home.
I am currently using a tubus vega, but it doesn’t have lower rails for the panniers, i think it works fine with small (basically front) panniers though. There is also racktime, which is tubus’ aluminium line basically. They have some nice racks, used one (addit) for a few years without complaints.*
Tubus is pricey but they also give a very good guarantee.
Not sure about heel drag compensation for any of those, my bike already has kind of a long chainstay to avoid that.
*edit: actually that is not true, i have a complaint: at the spot where the lower pannier mount touches the rack there is some serious shaving of the aluminium going on. I have never put tape on those mount points, which i think is recommended. That was after about 12000km of touring. Other than that i really liked the rack. I hope the tubus will shave less, i am using tape now too.
Yeah I think the heel drag problem is bigger for me because I have the click-system pedals (shimano SPD), so the part on the axle of the pedal is relatively in front of the foot.
I do love products that offer a good guarantee, it ends up really paying off.
I’mnnot sure I’ll be of much help, I have a tailfin system. I have to say, I really love their rack top bag as it’s very convenient and well made.
I tend to favour a durable and convenient system (usually unfortunately on the expensive side). When I’m not sure what features exactly I’m looking for Intend to buy the very cheapest option, and whilst using it work out what features are important to me. Then I buy the good stuff and give away/resell the cheaper system.
I think relatively low mounting option for panniers could be important, lower centre of gravity is important for ride quality/comfort. Also, important for you to be able to get the panniers sufficiently to the back so your heel doesn’t clip the bag. Stuff like a good light fixing spot is a nice-to-have - at least I always turn the lights on when it rains, for safety.
If my bike had the mounting points I would have gone for something nice from tubus or a similar manufactorer, but since it doesnt I had to pay 300 euros more for a tailfin (which, as a product, is really great by the way. But prohibitively expensive)
And I thought that 120€ for Tubus racks was a lot. I never considered the tailfin because I have lot of mount points.
I had borrowed bags that clipped my heels so in this case I know what to look for. I was just interested in some more options/ products that are good and i should consider.
My bike came with a tubus cargo classic. No complaints here. Solid and sturdy and ive exceeded the weight limit plenty of times with no issues. The only thing to be mindful of: if you use the standard type rackpack, ie the narrow one and not the ortlieb duffel, mounting panniers blocks off any easy access to the top of the rack, I have to strap my rackpack down with ratchet straps, luckily the altura dryline packs have plenty of spots to thread the straps through. If you use the narrow rackpacks and cant strap through them then go with something with seperate side mounts from the top bars like the logo’s and grand tour
I think they give that weight limit only because over - was it 25kg? - they are considered save for child transport and they don’t want the liability or something like that. You can read for every rack what weight they actually tested the racks with.
ISO 11243:2016 requires that all luggage carriers with a carrying capacity of 27 kg or more automatically be approved for the attachment of child seats, too. In our opinion, transporting children on luggage carriers is dangerous, so we voluntarily restrict the carrying capacity of tubus luggage carriers to max. 26 kg, thus excluding the attachment of child seats and/or the transport of children on our carriers. This restriction has only the legal reasons mentioned above. tubus carriers are still tested with considerably higher luggage loads (which are specified for each product in brackets).
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