Pannier racks for Mountain bike with no fittings

[joe capitelli]

I have a steel framed MTB (Reynolds853 with chromoly stays - it is a Cotic Soul) and want to fit rear panniers to do some off road touring in Scotland. However there are no rear pannier rack fittings on the bike. Does anyone know of any racks or attachments that would help me surmount this problem. Or it better to get some welded to the frame - or may that damage it? Would consider a BOB trailer but at 200+GBP it is out of my price range for what may be a one-off trip. THanks Joe

 

[moparchris]

you could attach a normal rack with the steel straps that usually come with them, depends on what sortof weight your going to be carrying though.

ive seen frames without mounting holes that have room for them on the dropout plates that are welded to the tubing, another option could be that if theres enough room to take it to an engineer and get some mounting holes drilled and tapped or even welded on though this could ruin frame tempering and weaken the frame it will also need repainting.

there are also racks that mount onto your seatpost but have no other extra support, they wont take much weight and if your offroad i wouldnt trust one.

 

[jmitting]

you could attach a normal rack with the steel straps that usually come with them, depends on what sortof weight your going to be carrying though.

ive seen frames without mounting holes that have room for them on the dropout plates that are welded to the tubing, another option could be that if theres enough room to take it to an engineer and get some mounting holes drilled and tapped or even welded on though this could ruin frame tempering and weaken the frame it will also need repainting.

there are also racks that mount onto your seatpost but have no other extra support, they wont take much weight and if your offroad i wouldnt trust one.

I would advise against drilling the frame, drill holes are stress raisers in any material. In a MTB frame constructed from a specialist alloy such as 853 they are likely to cause failure. Welding tabs to the frame is the better option, although again, 853 is not run of the mill steel, it requires that whoever welds it is as specialist as it is. I think this option would be surprisingly cheap and a permenant solution to the problem. A quality frame makers is the best place to go for this sort of modification. Aternativly you could as suggested use clamps to hold the rack to the frame, or , you could use a rack that attaches to the seat post. Of the two I'd use clamps and if needed some good glue as a backup such as Devcon. You would need to expose the base metal for the glue to grip though. This approach is going to be temporary and is likely to cost as much (with quality glue) as having rack tabs added. This whole rack thing is what stopped me buying a Giant as they had dumped rack mounts completely in favour of disks, the bike I chose gives me the option of substituting a V brake for the rear disk and then being able to fit a rack for touring. Good luck.