On Fri, 2011-10-14 at 06:48 -0700, David Spranger wrote: > Installed that same rack on my wife's Betty Foy without too much > issue. However, I experienced the same type of frustrations as you > when I installed a VO Randonneur rack on my Rambouillet. Looks great > now, but it is never coming off again. I also installed this same rack > on a VO frame for a friend. It was not as difficult, but not as easy > as I would have expected being that it was designed with VO frames in > mind. I think the welded on tang is just not the best way to do this.
I have one on my Johnny Coast-built VO Randonneur http://www.flickr.com/photos/97916047@N00/sets/72157606169015639/show/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/97916047@N00/2669029666/in/set-72157606169015639 It took several hours to install, and I learned a lot about working with stainless steel I never knew. I had no idea ordinary hacksaws and drills would make no impression on the stainless steel other than to polish it, and it literally took over an hour to cut the tang and another hour to drill it. I also had to bend, and then re-bend, the tang. It came at a great time: it was Monday, and I'd retired the Friday previous. It did a lot to keep my mind off things. Totally involving, and at the time, a great blessing. Pain in the rear? Not really; just not even slightly "plug and play." As I said earlier, it's a constructeur rack and you get to be the constructeur. As for "it's made for this frame so it ought to fit," a friend of mine has a small size production VO Randonneur. She had the rack installed at her LBS, and it didn't fit. Took it to VO, and they had at it; had to cut the tang off entirely to get it to fit. You have to remember, this is not a custom rack. It's a production rack and as such a compromise that can be made to fit most of these frames really well, once you get done working it over. It doesn't fit all of them equally well, and in the case of the really small sizes, the tang doesn't fit at all. Still, the VO Randonneur front rack is $80, $55 on sale right now. A custom rack like the one on my MAP is $375. That rack was built to fit my frame, and it fits as well as the paint on the frame. The builder did all the work, and it's perfect in every way. http://www.flickr.com/photos/97916047@N00/5979212331/in/set-72157627155309179 No hassle of any kind, but 5 - 7 times the price and it's available only with the frame. I'll bet the Rack Lady could build an equally perfect front handlebar rack for your frame; she did a spectacular job with the porteur rack for my P/R shopper. But, it took several months and I had to send her the fork, and the cost will be comparable to the MAP custom rack. If you have a bike that will fit the Nitto rack, it's an obvious choice. The Gilles Berthoud rack is another fine choice; I had one of those on my Saluki for several years. It's heavier than a custom rack, but at $150 it's about half the cost (and about twice the price of the VO rack). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
