One thing that is certain about bicycles is that nothing is without controversy.  I’m not a fan of controversy, but I do like to talk about bicycles so I accept the inevitable controversy that goes with those discussions.  Today, I’ll talk a little about racks.  

    I spent an inordinate amount of time on the rack you see in the picture at the top of this week’s blog.  There is no way that making racks like this is going to be profitable for me.  The tubing comes from an aircraft supply store and it is expensive.  It is also expensive to ship because, unless you buy it in ridiculously short lengths that would be of little use, it is considered oversize and they gouge you for shipping it.   The tools needed to bend it nicely are either time consuming to make or expensive to buy.  And, finally, you have to cut all those little pieces, file the little miters, find some way to hold everything together while you tack it, and then braze it all up making sure to go all the way around every tiny tubing intersection without leaving a gap.

    When the whole thing is done, it will go on the bicycle it was made for.  It will fit perfectly.  It won’t rattle.  It weighs almost nothing.  And when a handsome Berthoud bag is attached to it, almost no one will see it.  Almost no one will even know it is there.  So what’s the point?

    I admit to asking myself that question.  The Yellow Roadie you can see elsewhere on this site is more fun than any bike I have ever ridden.  It looks cool as a glacier, it climbs like a swallow, it accelerates like a cheetah, it responds like a beagle on a rabbit’s tail, and it is as comfortable as a good saddle on a Tennessee Walker, but I ride the Red Randonneuse more often.  Do you know why?  Because the Red Randonneuse does everything the Yellow Roadie does almost as well and the Red Randonneuse has a bag on front to carry things as well as fenders to keep the mud off  the bike and me.  Under the bag is a rack.  That’s why I make the racks.

    Most people who want a bag up front will buy a production bicycle and put an aftermarket rack on the bike to hold the bag.  That actually works pretty well.  I rode about nine thousand miles on a Rivendell with a Nitto handlebar rack and a Baggins Bag and it worked pretty well.  I still have the rack and bag and I could put them on the Yellow Roadie.  I’ve even thought of doing that.  But, since I have the Red Randonneuse, I probably never will.  

    There are other options, too.  There are after market racks that take the weight of the bag off the handlebars and put it on the fork as the rack above does.  Some of them are pretty nice, but in order to make a profit on them, they have to be somewhat universal.  When you do that, you can spend a few days making jigs to hold all the tubes in place, and you can develop a cut list and buzz all the little tubes on a tiny tubing chop saw, and you can set up belt sanders to make your miters.  Then you can knock those racks out left and right.  Heck, you can even hire someone to do it for you.  There’s still the brazing around all those little tubing intersections and the finish work, but if you’re building racks all day, you just get faster and neater.  

    In the end, you have a pretty good bicycle with a pretty good rack and you can be very happy with that.  Besides, almost no one will see that rack either.  In fact, almost no one will even know it’s there.    

    So again, what’s the point in making racks for my bicycles?  I guess it’s just that I feel like it is the right thing to do.  I could point out that a custom rack is lighter than a more universal one; or that there is not much to come loose on a custom rack.  But racks don’t weigh much anyway; and they do a pretty good job of not coming loose.

    I’m not stirring much controversy with this blog, am I?  I see both sides.  Let me end by stirring up a little controversy even though I claimed earlier not to be a fan of it.  You can buy a production frame with a production rack and put a high quality Berthoud front bag on it, a bag that was hand made by Vironique, and you have a very nice package.  Or, for the same money, maybe less, you can probably buy a custom bicycle with a custom rack and put that same Bethoud bag on it and know that the whole package is the very best someone could do for you.

    The thing is, almost no one else will even know.  And there is this: sometimes, when you feel like just loafing along, there is a little voice that says, “The fella that built this bike sweated it out and did the best he could, and the lady who made the bag did the same.  Are you gonna just loaf along all day?”   Some bicycles expect more out of you than others ,and, I don’t know, maybe that’s not fair; especially since almost no one else even notices.