Technical > Luggage

Pannier hook abrasion...and preventing same

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Danneaux:
Hi All!

With a large tour coming up and an afternoon of reasonable weather, this seemed like a good time to upgrade Sherpa's pannier hook-rack abrasion protection. I use Ortlieb panniers, and with time and vibration, their glass-reinforced nylon pannier hooks are really abrasive to rack powdercoatings. I've seen photos of holes worn in rack tubing by them, and I just got an email from my Dutch friend who is having a similar problem with his Ortlieb/Tubus combo.

I've been using a Trim-Brite automotive product to wrap my racks, and so far it has worked well to prevent any wear. It is a nice, matte-black tape with low-creep adhesive, intended to restore the window trim on automobiles. It even stands up to the abrasion caused by automatic car washes (the kind that removes the original finish this tape is meant to restore).

Though the tape has worked well, I notice the single layer I wrapped is starting to wear, so I sent for a couple packets of the newest Tubus "Schutzfolien" or protectors meant to keep racks happy with Ortlieb bags. Tubus calls it a "foil" but it is really an adhesive-backed, very shiny clear plastic. My guess is it is adhesive Mylar...it is pretty stiff and hard for its thickness. This is a new material for Tubus this year and they claim it far outlasts their earlier protective foils. See: http://www.tubus.com/product.php?xn=56

In their FAQ, Tubus say...
--- Quote ---Question: Why does abrasion begin at my carrier through the panniers?
Answer:
The hooks (and sometimes also the border) of modern panniers are made out of plastic with a content of glasfiber. The part of glasfiber was raised, to make the hooks more robust.

These hooks are abrasive and grind the surface of the carrier.

If there is any sand or dirt between the hook and the carrier, this goes even quicker.


Question: How can I avoid the surface-abrasion caused by the plastic parts of my panniers?

Answer: Our carriers are coated with a very strong polyester-based coating with best available technology.

1) Because abraison can appear, we advise to protect the area with our (optional available) protection foil set before using bags.

In 2012 we developed this new, transparent kind of foil, which is tested in-house to its adhesive power, UV- and abrasion resistance under hard conditions and which has performed strongly. It clearly outmatches the former foil.

2) Please check if your panniers fit exactly to the carrier. The inside diameter of the hooks has to be adapted (if necessary with adapters, which should have come with the pannier) to the tube-diameter of our carriers (10 mm). Also the lower hook must fit exactly to the tube (because of the 14 mm tube of TARA/DUO/SMARTI you need an optional available wider hook).

A good matched bag cannot chatter and accordingly makes less abraison.
--- End quote ---

I figured I'd need a couple sets, since I have two racks (front and rear). I learned I didn't get enough.

I learned a lot more that may help anyone thinking of getting and applying this stuff:

Lesson #1 You don't get much in each foil kit. There is one sheet that has been die-cut into three strips. Each strip is 40mm x 140mm, totaling 120mm x 140mm split three ways.

Lesson #2: Tubus recommend wrapping stressed areas twice (would have been nice if Tubus put these measurements and details in their FAQ: http://www.tubus.com/de_oe.php?xn=8 ).

Lesson #3: Tubus further state "in case of extreme stressed areas you should wrap three layers of foil round the carrier". That would be under the pannier hooks (2 per bag), plus the area immediately under the hook (2, 1 @ the forward diagonal of each Thorn Low-Loader), 1 spot each at the lower fin and another 1 each at the lower fin backing plate. That's a lot more tape than is included in each kit, so if you want to protect everything, you'll be short. You'll also be unhappy if you spent as much as I did; retail for these kits is USD$8.49. Two kits plus postage from Portland, OR cost me USD$23.

Lesson #4: The first wrap of a 10mm OD rack consumes 35mm of the stuff..about 1 wrap if you wrap the short way. so don't; go lengthwise (linear). Because the foil is fairly thick at 0.09mm/.0035in, it grows with every wrap, so count on using 108mm or so of the available 140mm length if you go for three wraps. I'm thinking a person would need 4 of these kits to do a minimal job on two racks.  That's a lot of money, totaling close to USD$40 at the best prices I could find including postage.

Lesson #5: Despite being very careful with my measurements and cutting and employing Ghandian levels of patience and determination, the results look terrible. I wore nitrile gloves to avoid fingerprinting the adhesive, and the racks were clean as clean can be with no surface oils, thanks to a quick wipe of 99% isopropyl I use for solder-prepping circuit boards. There was no rack abrasion thanks to my previous use of the trim tape. I even got perfect registration when wrapping, thanks to using the sun's linear reflection on the rack tubes.

Lesson #6: Though the foil went on crystal-clear and bubble-free, the longer it was in place, the cloudier it became (See photos). After awhile, I looked at the overlap of my wrappings and found they had come loose. Pressing them in place, they held for about three seconds and popped loose. Taping them in place for 15 minutes had the same result. The film is simply too stiff for the adhesive intended to hold it. The cloudiness comes when the wraps try to unwrap and delaminate from each other, stretching the adhesive and causing air gaps.

I removed the lot, which was surprisingly easy since it had already started to uncurl.

Huh.

My second attempt involved going to Pacific Rubber for a length of Gates Rubber Company's 6 LOLA reinforced and corded hard-neoprene-coated synthetic rubber tubing. I wanted tubing that would fit over the rack (10mm) yet fit inside the Ortlieb hooks with the sizing spacers removed (16mm). By happy accident in metric-challenged America, 10mm/16mm equals a hose with 3/8" ID and 5/8" OD.

I cut off come sections using arc'd cable cutters to get a nice, square cut, then sliced the hose sections lengthwise, missing my major arteries. The result looked nice and I was encouraged. The sun broke through the cloudy Ortlieb foil, the birds sang, and life was good once more.

Not.

As soon as the hose was sliced, it expanded, thanks to the release of compressed internal cording. This left a gap that was neatly filed by the lower retention clasp of the Ortlieb hooks, preventing them from locking the bags on the rack. Worse, the hose had enough friction against the inside of the pannier hooks to make intended removal a three-handed operation. Nice try, but it dinna'gonna work.

I think I'll go back to the Trim-Brite windshield molding trim tape, and just wrap it a few times. It was invisible, looked good, didn't try to uncurl, and lasted a while. Best of all, it came on a roll so there was plenty of it. A friend tried electrical tape, and after riding in hot weather, the adhesive crept out from the layers and gummed-up his hooks. He switched to black duct tape with the same but messier results.

So. What do you do to or put on your racks to minimize pannier hook abrasion? Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Best,

Dan.

Andre Jute:
Strips of velcro about three quarter of an inch wide for the most part. One end is wider and has a slot for feeding the free end through. Bought them in packs of five or six each at Lidl. My fave Basil Cardiff pannier baskets have no lower fastening, so I use old Sam Browne reflective belts. The baskets definitely rubbed a good ali rack so much that it was weakened (probably just as well, as it folded when a Range Rover drove into it, sacrificing itself to save my bike). The Velcro is wrapped around and around my current Tubus Cosmo stainless rack (don't buy one until you've seen it in the flesh -- it's for posers) for the full length of the strip so that it makes a standoff about quarter-inch to three-eighths thick. There are wraparounds not only where there are hooks, but wherever the basket touches, or could touch under any conceivable condition. Not as elegant a solution as yours with the tape, but it has worked superbly for three years and about 5500km, over 3000 miles. Not a mark on the rack or the bike. The velcro strips add no weight as I would carry them anyway to tie up whatever comes loose on my bike on my rough lanes. (On a Utopia? I know, heresy. And nothing has come loose. But I'm a belt and braces man.)

Andre Jute
By hook or by loop

Danneaux:

--- Quote ---Strips of velcro about three quarter of an inch wide for the most part...
--- End quote ---
That's a brilliant idea, Andre, but I am having some problems. I have a few of these velcro ties on hand, and gave it a try. The resulting wrap was too thick for the pannier hook with 10mm spacer installed, and with the 16mm hook alone, it was initially plenty thick, but soon compressed to allow the hooks to rattle.

Is there a secret to the wrapping to keep it in place and the hooks rattle-free?

I also found the wrapped velcro tended to shift on me.

Do you think adhesive-backed velcro wold work? I have some of the standard hook-pile sort, then I also have an industrial version with interlocking mushroom-shaped posts. It is backed with a true industrial adhesive, and might work well if I could get it to wrap a 10mm radius.

Have you heard or had any experience with Foliatec protective films? http://www.foliatec.com/en/protect/lackschutzfolie/
...or...
Mactac protective films? http://www.mactac.eu/products-stone-chip-protection-3-2321--2322.htm

You've got me thinking, Andre! Top-drawer suggestion, and much appreciated.

All the best,

Dan.

il padrone:
I tried those foil patches that came with the Tubus rack first time....... they wouldn't stick, just peeled off. I threw them away. That rack was used for over 7 years on my old Sedona tourer and is still on my wife's bike. It has rubbed sections with no powder-coat and a bit of surface corrosion. It's still plenty strong. Corrosion is never too much of  a worry with CroMoly - half the chrome content of stainless steel.

On the Thorn Nomad's racks I tried again. Heard that you must wipe the rack surface down with alcohol first. I used metho and the patches stuck OK. The shame is that having placed them in one place I found that the panniers sat better in a different spot  :-* Bad luck, the rack is still getting wear patches. Battle scars I say.

richie thornger:
Last year on the trip to Istanbul I used my Ortliebs with the spacers in. Thorn racks front and rear.
I had black electrical tape wrapped round the contact points and this seemed to do the trick for the 3 months I was away. It wasn't looking pretty by the end though.
I've been experimenting with very basic clear hosepipe from my local fish pond supplier. It has no beading in it. You can squash it flat with your fingers. I just took a metre of the smallest diameter they had. Sliced it up with a Stanley knife and and then lengthways.
I had come across a video on Youtube that gave me the idea.
The clip was using scuba diving tube and was held on with zip ties.
I tried using ties but I like to position my clips butted up against the edge of the rack to reduce forward and back movement. Using ties didn't allow me to do that. So I am now using electrical tape.
The hose was actually too wide in diameter for the racks and overlapped when wrapped around.
This causes the rack to become an uneven shape which actually seems to make for a better grip for the clips. As my bags tend to stay on all day, I'm more interested in them not moving than being super easy to get on and off. I've been using this system for a few months now. It doesn't seem to be wearing through the tape as quickly. I've got red tape on the right and blue tape on the left. And matching colour coding on the bags. It helps me remember what stuff is in what bag. Red is bed and Blue is food. I ran out of rhymes after that :)
I've just spent the last few days tinkering with the Nomad. At present the front carrying device has high and low mounts, a parcel shelf and room for a few lights on the front. It's the bastard offspring of a Thorn low loader and a rear Blackburn mountain rack.
I must take a picture :o I'm not sure if it will get used but it certainly solves where to put the extra sleeping bag for when it gets a bit cold. For another thread me thinks.

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