Small handlebar bag rack
designed and built by Garrett Belmont and James Black
page updated June 26, 2009. Text and images of completed rack added.
page updated April 7, 2009. Progress images added. Rack is currently being built.
Garrett bought a little MIG welder, and this little rack was one of our first projects. The MIG welder, sans shielding gas (not to mention our developing welding skills), made mild steel rod the material of choice. The intention was to create a svelte and reasonably elegant little front rack designed to work on James's Nishiki (with sidepull brakes), and thus wrapping the platform around the back of the fork crown for mounting, like the old Blackburn racks, seemed like the right place to start. The next moves were determined by an effort to design the rack such that the welds would be easy to do and strong (i.e., connecting rods in parallel was preferred), to create adequate triangulation for stiffness, and to limit the unsupported length of any particular segment (since the use of rod rather than larger diameter tube limits stiffness in bending).
Unlike most small racks where the platform is longer than it is wide, the platform here is more like 4" long (front-to-backstop) by 8" wide. The basis for this platform design was to create the largest platform that would still fit under the smallest Berthoud bag (the Mini 86). Larger bags will cantilever over the edges.
The lower photos show the process - we started by making the platform as a flat hexagonal loop, with Garrett's DIY tube bender. Next came the stays, which like the platform were 3/16" rod. So far, so good. Next came the backstop/secondary stays, bent tortuously from one length of 1/8" rod. This seemed like a good idea at the time, to use a lighter (and easier to bend) material to form the backstop, add triangulation and support the shoulders of the platform at the rear of where the bag would go, but getting all those bends to line up is challenging. It seems like a miracle that it came out with reasonable accuracy, but some improvisation is possible with the narrower rod.
The rack was finished with three coats of gloss black Rustoleum.
In the end, the rack is quite acceptably straight and symmetrical, and the design seems successful. Next time, we would rethink the 1/8" rod strategy.
General View.
General View.
General View.
General View.
General View.
General View.
In progress.
In progress.
In progress.