Bruce Gordon's mid-fork mounts are intended for Bruce's lowrider front
rack, and for nothing else >:-P
I built up my late lamented Raleigh International with BG front+rear racks,
and had long intended to have contact points brazed on for them, along with
pivot posts for centerpulls. I even sounded Bruce out once on whether he'd
be willing to do the work ("only if I don't have to mess with the paint
afterwards"). Bruce closed the shop before I got to it, then died, then I
wrecked the Raleigh.
Bruce's attachment principles were similar to Grant's. He used metal+rubber
P-clamps for forks without properly located midfork braze-ons (i.e., any
fork he hadn't made), and used the twisted Erector set metal diving boards
to attach the rear rack to the seat stays. I found this attachment method
unacceptably ugly, and replaced the ugly-o P-clamps with Tubus fork clamps
in front (on the Raleigh) and Tubus turnbuckles+rails+stainless steel
seatstay clamps (the Raleigh had no rack attachment points). Made the thing
look far more purpose-built. The one disadvantage was that the Tubus fork
clamps pushed the sides of the rack out about 5mm from each leg, as they're
really intended as attachment points for Tubus' own front racks. The BG
rack sides are further inboard, to get the weight closer to the centerline.
I replaced the Raleigh with a Trek 720, which has midfork braze-ons. I was
upset to discover that the attachment points on Bruce's rack were about
40mm above the fork's braze-ons, which were probably intended for the old
Blackburn lowrider. I've got the whole mess held on with P-clamps now, but
it ticks me off every time I think about it. Maybe someday I'll move the
canti posts to work as centerpull pivots, and have midfork braze-ons put in
the right location at the same time.
The big question is: Why aren't more racks made like the Mark's rack and
the Nitto UD-1/UD-2 from Rene Herse? There have to be more people trying to
retrofit racks to older frames with idiosyncratic attachment points. I've
bought four different handlebar bag racks trying to fit the center brake
hole-to-canti post on the Trek (sized for 27"). None of them work, because
they're all designed for 700c.
Peter "arrrgh" Adler
Berkeley, CA/USA
On Thursday, March 23, 2023 at 5:29:03 AM UTC-7 Steven Sweedler wrote:
I wonder when Nitto introduced the flexible strut mounts (Mark’s rack) vs.
the rigid struts of the rack on Robert Tilleys AR. The 700 c AR that I had
came with the same rack as Roberts. Bruce Gordon’s mid rack mounts were not
compatible with that Nitto rack.
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