bob trailer or panniers?

[heathergerstmar]

I am taking a cycling trip form Vancouver to San Diego this summer.
I just bought a Cannondale R500 road bike yesterday. I decided agaisnt a touring bike because I want to do triathalons when I get back, and so thought it would be wiser to spend the money on a bike I will get more use of in the future. Are panniers maybe too heavy for the road bike, should one use a bob trailer instead? ANy suggestions???

[sarahlou]

hello again,
we have used both panniers and bob, seperately and together. My husband always trails the bob and he really like it. Does your bike already have braze-ons for racks? If not, you may want to consider the bob. If it does, panniers are pretty easy to deal with. You could always have somewone weld braze-ons to your frame, but then your paint job gets a bit messed up. Bobs can hold a good amount of gear. If you do go with panniers, you might try to reduce your load so that you only use rear ones as having weight on the front can make for tricky steering at times.

[KnottedYet]

It doesn't look like you can put a rack and panniers front or rear on that bike, so you might be stuck with a B.O.B. as your only option (if the clamp will fit around the shaped stays). With the geometry of that bike, you might have better handling with a B.O.B. than with loaded panniers anyway.

Can aluminum be brazed?

The seatpost attached racks can hold about 15-20 pounds, and you don't need anything but a seatpost for that. They'll also act like a fender if you add a rat-tail, which will help since you'll probably want fenders on your long ride.

There are some nice "razor" fenders for bike without braze-ons or eyelets. MimiTabby has some, and they work pretty well here in Seattle!

[Grog]

I have seen that bike with a rack before, so it can be done I'm sure.

[KnottedYet]

Do you know what rack it was?

My bike doesn't have eyelets or brazeons either, and I don't have enough seatpost for the seatpost racks.

If there's a good rack that will sit on the stays like those razor fenders, I'd love to know about it!

('course, with my big honkin' bar bag I don't need a rack much now... but still )

I'm going by this picture of her bike http://www.cannondale.com/bikes/02/c...del-2RR5T.html which makes it look as nekkid as my bike in the eyelet and braze-on department... (my poor Flossie, nekkid as a jaybird!)

[Grog]

I wondered about the same thing as you but then I saw a pic online of a R500 with a rear rack that was definitely not just a seatpost rack. Wasn't a closeup though so I can't see how it was done.