Jack the Rack, thoughts and knock offs

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spinnnout

Bought into the kickstarter and have been using most days for a long time now.

To echo the above, it isn't as a good as a dedicated rack but when you have a bike or three without mounts, it is really quite good.

It excels as a general rack doing commuting and odd jobs, it hasn't added much for me in terms of bikepacking. Strapping a tent to the handlebars vs using Jack doesn't gain much and then the rack bounces around more on rough surfaces.

On the negative side, if you don't get things right, it'll feed kit into the front wheel. I've solved this using rigid dry bags and not bothering with the straps provided. Turns out you still can't beat the good ol' Voile strap.

More niggles and photos in this build thread..
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/383746/

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jono84 in reply to @spinnnout

Any slippage issues or just that stuff has a way of finding itself out the back? I'm looking at one for my girlfriends bike and she's on the 230mm limit (actually more like 220mm once i add a mudguard). It'd be primarily to carry her work laptop so i'd probably think about a low profile basket fixed to it so no risk of anything falling through.

To be honest if it doesn't work on hers i could see it being a better option for me given how little i carry and that my current rack weighs around 1kg.

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Jackandtay in reply to @jono84

I use mine with a Wald 137 half and basket bag. It holds a laptop, jacket and shoes really well. There isn’t much clearance but it’s only hit the wheel on one occasion when I wasn’t looking and smashed through a pothole.
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exteroceptive in reply to @jono84

It's a nice rack but tbh I'm not sure I'd carry a laptop in it. It does bounce around a fair bit.
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spinnnout in reply to @jono84

Any slippage issues or just that stuff has a way of finding itself out the back?

This, it's open at the back and stuff can work it's way onto the wheel but this has been solved with the above voile configuration, that I'm sure could also be done with the cords provided.

To be honest if it doesn't work on hers..

If you are still near my office in EC1, you can borrow it for a week, just drop me a pm with the handlebar diameter.

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