have a plan.

[Mike Brown]

I still don't understand what happened at the drop-out/rack connection?

[tomimcmillar]

I use a bolt on hub, so don't utilize to OMM extra long qwik release, the rack is bolted to the dropout eyelets.

Bit too much bouncy bounce over time and the left side mounting bolt snapped, shearing off flush w/ the face of the threaded eyelet.
No way to back out or thread thru the broken nub out of the eyelet, so spare bolts were worthless.

Resorted to zip tie stabilization Plan A, here's another pic:


Moral of the story, if using the rack mounts on your frame/fork, use an extra long bolt.  Let that thing run thru the eyelet 1/8"+ on the backside, will give your pliers something to grab onto so you can turn the broken stub out of the threads...

And yes, I do have a set of bags on order w/ Eric at Epic, can't wait!   

[jhl99]

That failure mode on the eyelet mount is almost to be expected  with a heavily loaded rack.. (your loaded didn't look so heavy, maybe a lot of miles on the rack?).. the standoff that is required so the rack legs clear the disk brake are not good for the stresses on the screw.   I hope more frame manufactures get on board with mounting the disk calipar on the chainstay, so that a rack mounting is not as compromised.  

I use a rear rack, but have V-brakes (no standoffs required), so my rack mounting has been running strong for 8 years ... except I think the M5 mountng screws into the eyelets are corroded in place. 

Rack reliability gets a bad rap because the industry hasn't engineered good rack to frame connections and created  system solution.   The connection has be rigid and well designed.  Nice racks are available, then to mount it to the frames requires half-baked bracket arrangements with slots and adjustability which tend to compromise stiffness. 

Too bad rack attachment hasn't be standardized like disk brakes.

[rodar y rodar]

TM, I have to say your thread has been very interresting to see how you pulled off this trip from planning through execution.  Congratulations on overcomming the setbacks you ran into and knocking out all that elevation, especially on SS.  Thanks for the nice pics, too.

About the rack bolt, I was wondering WTF too.  I forgot about the offset for the brake calipers.   Having no offset is easier on things of course, and it WOULD be nice if more mfgs started thinking about 6mm bosses, but in the mean time I can`t help but think that even 5mm bolts might hold up better if you were to drill out the threads and put a nut on the back side with a bolt sized just right so that the shoulder extended all the way through the shear points, if that makes any sense.  Besides not having the diameter reduced by almost 20% where the threads are, there wouldn`t be as much tendency for a crack to start with in a straight, unthreaded diameter.  Just thinking out loud- sorry if it sounds dingy.

JLH, yeah, uniform mounting would be nice, but until all people are the same size and share the same ride prefferences, frames will continue to be different, so I don`t see how rack mounts could be more uniform.  I`ve built most of my own racks and fit them specifically to the bikes they`re going on, so there`s no funny business with slots and pivoting gizmos to account for differences.  It does work out to a much better strength to weight ratio, in my opinion.  I see by your other threads that you`re pretty handy- if you ever end up wanting a new rack, you may want to give some thought to a MAPP torch and a tubing bender.  It isn`t a completely idiot proof project, but it ain`t a major deal either.

[tomimcmillar]

Day 3, fourish hours sleep, breaking camp, taking inventory.

45minute climb up 33, turn right onto the SMT, yeah:

Get out past High Knob and into the no man's land between there and BotherKnob. 
Not much traffic thru here, trail got tight:

Sometimes frustrating over the couple hours it took to bust across that section:

Back into the known after BotherKnob, qwik view on the way to Reddish.

Reddish Knob respite.

The daily payoff, lots and lots and lots of this to finish the ride, makes all the suffering melt away.

top of Rt 250

from there it was about a 5hr push to finish, camera was stowed for the effort.  Lots more of that incredible flowing green carpet, then the rain came at around 7 in the pm.  It got chilly, the trail still rode great.  Then it got dark, but at least the rain stopped.  Final downhill to the car wasn't the blissful session I'd hoped for, instead, it was verge of hypothermic riding thru rain drooped carwash leaves, then gravel road fogginess that left much to be desired w/ the underpowered head lamp.  Finally at the car, 10pm.  13.5hr day, 60couple covered.

Damn thing held together, whodda thunk?


final stats: 230+mile, 25k of climbing.

[Pivvay]

Nice work. Loved the report.

[ScottM]

Nice work. Loved the report.

Ditto.  Good stuff and great to see some stuff in the east.  Sounds like you covered a lot of ground -- 230 miles in 3 days.

Looking forward to the GPS and route description.

[tomimcmillar]

hey Scott, route description....just send it to you as a Word doc, w/ gpx file attached?

[ScottM]

Yep, that works.

[SandSurfer]

My Tubus rack rocks the house, and has no funny connections.  It's rated for 70 lbs, so the 8 or so that I carry is nothing.

[tomimcmillar]

just to be clear, this is not an issue with the OMM rack.  This particular rack is made to work with the qwik release as the support, I use a bolt on ENO hub, ss.  So, instead of using the stout qwik release connection, I picked up some bolts from Lowes that matched the thread of the eyelets.  After more then just this tour, one of them failed.  Had I used a longer bolt, extending thru the eyelet, I could have run out the stub and put in a fresh bolt.  As it is, the broken bit is still in the frame.  Had I used a fresh bolt for the mount for this trip, probably wouldn't have broken...I was expecting something like this to happen, I've even heard of the eyelets shearing off the dropout, shit happens.  Imaginable to knock off the bolt head on a tight rock line, there's a reason I carry the zip ties, they're quite useful.  The band clamp, which had also seen previous miles, failed due to the extra loading from the zip tie flex.   

Shoulda used fresh hardware for this one, lesson learned.
But it wasn't something I didn't have a plan for, there were
also plans c & d, & e...just an added part of the challenge
to finish intact.   

[jhl99]

Looking at pics of the ENO hub, are those just Socket Head Cap screws that thread into the eccentrics?  Could you drill out the OMM rack standoffs and use longer Socket Head Caps Screws to capture the the rack mounting along with the eccentrics?  (I'm not a fan of tangling up rack mounting with wheel mounting, but you do what works...)

By the way, the metric hardware at Lowes may not be the highest grade stuff, if you don't have a better source locally, try www.mcmastercarr.com  they are an industrial hardware store on steriods.  Eyelets are probably M5, as mentioned somewhere above in this thread ( I use grade 18-8 Stainless Steel hardware with no issues).

Finally,  the 18 hr marathon on day 2 ending at 2AM, was that length of day and riding into the early hours of the next day, by plan? or by necessity?   Did the rack issues significantly add elapsed time that day?   

[tomimcmillar]

yeah, had originally thought about drilling the rack for the larger wheel bolts when I first got it.  But the ENO bolt washer has a lip w/ which centers it in the drop out, the axle faces are flat.  Take that washer out of the equation and I'm concerned that I'll get slop/movement out of the rear wheel from pedaling and braking forces, plus I'd need to round up some longer bolts then.  And yeah, I did use cheapo hardware for the attachment, now I know.  And I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for my Epic bags to show up..couple more weeks. 

The 18hr day....wasn't originally in the cards, but I realllly wanted to finish the loop.  By pedaling to Brandywine no matter what, I felt I could've at least stashed my overnight gear in the woods in order to solo back to the car on day 3, then swing back and pick it up on the drive home. If I had bivied further out along the Smokehole, I would've needed to bivy up along the SMT, which would mean needing the gear, which may or may not make it along due to the now questionable rack.  So, since the planned SMT bivy was questionable, and I wanted to leave to door open to finish the route, I pedaled until 2 in the morning to set up a doable final day's push to the car....if I had known that the zip ties were gonna hold, would've stuck to the original plan and gotten a few more zzzzz's that night.