TLDR: Over time I've moved more weight forward and lower and experienced better handling.
Many years ago I would use dual rear panniers. That worked fine, but after I started to move weight to the front I realized a heavy rear load really affected the handling of most bikes. With a heavy rear load you cant toss the bike side-to-side when making an out-of-the-saddle effort. Maybe it's the long lever of the weight far back, but I feel like a bike is much more stable with a balanced (front AND rear) load. I also think the rear wheel already has the most stress when unloaded and adding extra weight in panniers and a rear rack only increases the burden on the wheel and tire. Over time I have added more and more weight to the front of my bikes. Started with a giant Wald 157 delivery basket on the front of a Schwinn Speedster 3-speed with the collapsible wire Wald baskets on the back. That bike had very stable handling and with steel wheels and a heavy steel frame it could take a heavy load front and rear well. Ginormous grocery runs. I've moved to lighter bikes and lighter/smaller bags and baskets. A great option for commuting was a 137 up front and a Carradice or Bags by Bird large saddle bag in the back. Balanced loads if a little top heavy. My most recent commuting setup is a Soma Lucas rack in the front with dual Jandd mini-mountain panniers on a Soma San Marcos with Albatross bars. This is a wonderful set up for commuting and I have found that I can load the panniers with way more weight with less effect on the handling than a Wald basket and saddle bag. The rear has no weight. My bikepacking bike has a Bags by Bird large on the front supported by a Lucas rack. Putting the weight between my hands is much more stable than if the weight was off the back of the bike. I add my light sleeping bag and warm clothes in a dry bag strapped to a aluminum rear rack. Justin in Sacratomato On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 9:45:08 AM UTC-7 Jim Whorton wrote: > Those Wald rear baskets are great--I use one for grocery shopping > routinely. I have the larger version, the Wald 535 (18 inches long). It > is very sturdy--no problem loading it with cans, milk cartons, etc and you > can strap a big bag of dog food or whatever over the top. I have a set of > the Wald folding baskets too, but they are much flimsier than the > non-folding kind, and they rattle. > > It is true that these rear baskets do not match the shape of an ordinary > grocery bag (paper sack, or the reusable kind). Takes a little repacking > at the bike rack. > > At one point I had this rear basket on my 59cm Clem H. It didn't > work--for some reason it created a bad shudder in the fork. But it works > fine on this old Peugeot. And, getting back to the original question: on > this bike I always load the rear first, and only put light things in the > front basket. Handling gets weird if there is much weight up front: > > Jim Whorton in Rochester, NY > > [image: IMG_1696 (1).jpg] > > On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 8:16:16 AM UTC-4 philipr...@gmail.com wrote: > >> Funny you should say that but I was thinking the Wald folding basket >> would be interesting particularly as I'm sure you could come up with an >> easy mount/dismount system with a trip to the local Ace Hardware. Certainly >> not boutique PNW custom pricing either. >> >> https://www.amazon.com/Wald-Folding-Rear-Bicycle-Basket/dp/B0012DVQVQ?th=1 >> >> On Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 7:08:03 AM UTC-5 E. Ricky Creek wrote: >> >>> I've been toying with this for a few weeks: >>> >>> https://www.amazon.com/Wald-Rear-Medium-Basket-13-5X6-25X11/dp/B001EL7P34?th=1 >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/a5d1d82a-f9b9-4dfe-bbe0-b6b84b6428a0n%40googlegroups.com.
