Part two of how I have been racking up the front end of Rambler No.1. Yesterday you saw the Mark's rack from Nitto. That rack is a great handlebar bag support and for occasional small loads. When I know I will be hauling more volume, and need the panniers, I go with the Bruce Gordon Low-rider rack. Hand welded with aircraft grade 4130 steel in Petaluma, Ca, these racks are IMO the best bang for your buck in front pannier racks. The design is rock solid, the price fair at around $180, and it will likely be the last front low-rider rack you will ever need to buy. If you do need to get rid of it, the used market has been around $120 for as long as I can remember. Here is Rambler No. 1 all racked up:
The way I have it set up you can quickly take it off and on without having to alter the position of the upper rack at all. The upper rack mounts to the inside of the fork, the low-rider to the outside. Two nuts at the top and two bolts at the dropout and you are ready to go. Production Ramblers will have the hourglass mount located higher than my sample so that this rack will bolt up right out of the box.
The space between mounting points provides plenty of clearance between the top cross bar of the low-rider and the support struts for the Mark's Rack. Easy on and easy off for the panniers.
I had this rack kicking around in the garage as a keeper from a craig's list find. The Bruce Gordon Front Mountain Rack made it into my possession a couple of years back when I was lucky enough to be the first responder to an ad for a "grocery getter" that turned out to be a 1985 Specialized Stumpjumper Sport, thanks to sharp eyes, was wearing this rack. The bike was a very fun fire road machine, but had to go and now lives in the Pacific NW. The rack however, stayed on the shelf for a later project. Based on the Oregon location for Bruce's shop on the sticker the rack is likely as old as the stumpjumper, Bruce is now in Petaluma, Ca.
I have been thinking about fitting a front rack to the Rawland, but after looking at the front racks available I was not really happy with what I saw. The most likely candidate was a Surly nice rack with a bit of grinding it could be made to work, but all that hardware looked like trouble for trail days. The BG rack was originally intended to clear the cantilever brakes that were popular for touring and off-road back in the 80's, while keeping the bags clear of rocks and the load as close to the steering axis as possible. I had used the rack on the stumpy and it had actually helped with the handling of the older slack geometry. I pulled the rack down to see if and how it would play with the disc brake calipers on the Rawland.
Low and behold the fit was almost perfect. The biggest problem was with the design of the plug dropout and brazeon for the front fork. This has always been a problem with this bike and required spacers to bolt on just about anything. I mounted it up with 4mm of spacers, the original 2mm, a presta nut and the fender R-clip on each side. The top is held in place with clamps for now, but if need arises or I get this bike re-coated, brazeons will be added. I have now used the rack for a few weeks both on and off-road and it has been rock solid.
The load has little detrimental effect on the handling at all. I have used it mostly for errands and trips to the Sunday farmer's market. Average loads are around 15 lbs and handling was fine. The heaviest was around 35, and yes the handling was a bit slow with that much weight in the front, but things never got out of control.
I would recommend this rack to anybody in the market for a front rack that can clear you brakes. This design proves to be fairly timeless as it predates the disc brake design by decades yet adapts easily. Bruce is still making and selling these, and you should look him up if you are in the market.
The way I have it set up you can quickly take it off and on without having to alter the position of the upper rack at all. The upper rack mounts to the inside of the fork, the low-rider to the outside. Two nuts at the top and two bolts at the dropout and you are ready to go. Production Ramblers will have the hourglass mount located higher than my sample so that this rack will bolt up right out of the box.
The space between mounting points provides plenty of clearance between the top cross bar of the low-rider and the support struts for the Mark's Rack. Easy on and easy off for the panniers.