Any Students?

[xeney]

That is good advice -- I have mine mounted even further back, thanks to bad experiences with grocery panniers. See here ... the light is where the rear of the rack is, and the baskets stick way out behind that.

[pll]

And one more silly tip: I have loaded those baskets so much (grocery shopping), I broke the bottom part of the rack, where the rack "stays" are welded and then attach to the frame. One of the people who works at the LBS suggested a hose clamp as a fix. You can see it, albeit not clearly, in the picture I posted, on the right side, in front of the seat stay. It has held together very well. Anyway, you'd think racks should be able to take the weight by design...

The baskets get warped with the weight, but the LBS straightened them the last time I took the bike in for some annual TLC.

[xeney]

What kind of rack do you use? I use the cheap, heavy, $12 Wald rack. I carry a ton of groceries and so far the rack and the baskets are find, but I am totally messing up my rear wheel. I'm going to have to replace it with something that can handle more weight (but I am secretly hoping that my husband gets me a custom wheelset for Christmas).

[pll]

Xeney,

I will double check, but I believe I have a Blackburn rack. Looks like the XR-1 in http://www.blackburndesign.com/racks.html. I paid $36 for it in March 2003 (the receipt does not have the brand or model printed). I have not had a problem with my wheels (not even a flat tire), but the bike is *heavy*.

[xeney]

My bike is a converted single speed with 27" wheels, and the wheels are 22 years old so who knows how they're holding up. But the rear wheel won't stay true anymore and my husband thinks that eventually I am going to pop a spoke.

Basically I need a 27" touring wheel with a flip-flop hub, which I can't buy stock (the one supplier no longer carries them), so I am going to have to have someone build it for me. I keep procrastinating on ordering it because, you know, Christmas. (Which means I'll probably order it the first week in January, heh.)

[pooks]

Thanks for the pics -- I always do better with pictures.

[pll]

Yikes. Sounds pricey. Be careful. Do you tend to load one basket over the other? Since I tend to load the right basket first, I wonder if such a choice has a significant impact on the rear wheel. (but I confess to my bike mechanics ignorance).

[xeney]

No, I always make sure they are pretty even. That wheel just wasn't meant to carry me plus fifty pounds of groceries.

And it's a lot to spend on a $35 garage sale bike, except when I am using the bike for groceries I easily save us $30 a month in gas, so the new wheelset pays for itself pretty quickly.