surly nice front rack?

[arikira]

anyone knows how they perform?

[pdamm]

I have had a surley nice rack for three years now.  It is strong reliable, robust, two sets of rails so you can mount your panniers higher or lower plus a rack on top to attach more stuff to.  I have ridden for days with 25 kg in my front panniers (mostly water) with over rough dirt roads and they performed very well.  They come with lots of options to fit on all sorts of different forks.  All this comes at a cost of course and they are among the heaviest front racks you can buy.

Peter

[arikira]

thanks peter,
it seems like theyre the only bombproof front rack with uploading option so guess ill go for it

[vik]

I've got a Surly Nice sitting here gathering dust in my parts bin.  The design is not elegant and the result is a needlessly heavy rack that is overly complex.  I had it on a touring bike and eventually removed it.  It has not merited re-installation on another bike.  I'm generally a Surly fan, but their Nice racks have not impressed me.



My preferred front rack is an OMM Cold Springs rack.  I like the design, the top platform and having tried panniers at both high and low rider positions prefer the higher position for ease of access on the bike, greater ground clearance and I have not noticed any negative handling due to the higher pannier position.

I've got several Cold Springs racks in play...the oldest of which is 9yrs+ and going strong.  They have been abused on a number of heavily loaded dirt road tours which were quite punishing and have never once caused me any problems.

safe riding,

Vik
www.thelazyrando.com

[Danneaux]

Surely Nice Front Racks seem to be a love-or-hate-it proposition.  Everyone I know who has one loves it and I have never seen a breakage among them in use, despite carrying heavy loads.  Last spring, I bought and mounted a Surly Nice Front Rack, and ended up selling it unused on eBay earlier this summer.  Despite the glowing reports of others, I was terribly disappointed.  Although it had redesigned, uprated lower brackets, I found it to be unacceptably flexible side-to-side.  The brackets are incredibly stiff vertically, but -- since they are formed from flat stainless sheet -- have little resistance to lateral forces.  The problem was made worse by the rack itself having no lateral triangulation; it was built like a three-sided box and that didn't work well for this application.

The build quality was very nice and the finish on mine was excellent.  I liked the dual-level mounting for bags and the threaded light mount.  The problem was all due to design.  It also weighed an awful lot, and about half the weight was due to the hardware, which allowed maximum flexibility in mounting (pun intended).

That said, I have a Surly Nice Rear Rack on my Sherpa, transferred from my Miyata 1000 LT.  I love it, and all the shortcomings of the front rack seem to be absent in this application.  I especially like the loop "return" at the front of the rack and frequently use it as a handle when lifting and turning the bike in tight quarters.  I swapped positions for the mounting struts, placing the longer ones at the bottom for maximum sleeving and reinforcement of the uprights, while the shorter struts worked perfectly at the top mounts and I didn't need to trim them shorter.

I understand Tubus has been working on a front platform rack for some time, but will not release it until all shortcomings are addressed.  I look forward to it.  My Thorn Low Loader Mark V racks are wonderful, but it would sometimes be helpful to have a front platform, though its ultimate usefulness would be compromised by tight clearance below my Ortlieb handlebar bag.  I think I'll stay with the Thorn LLMVs for the foreseeable future.

Best,

Dan.