On 14/04/2015 8:21 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


http://www.santosbikes.com/fietsen/lite-serie/race-lite

with dynohub of course.


--

Lou

Something that I've noticed with a lot of bikes like this one and the Surly Long-Haul Trekker is that the panniers are often mounted way back of the rear axle. At one time it was taught to have as much of the weight of the bag and contents centred over the rear axle for directional stability of the bike. Has something changed that lets you mount your pannier far over the back of the rear axle without affecting bicycle directional stability/handling?

Cheers

The pic from Lou's URL that came up for me showed a dark Race Lite with
pannier bag mounted way back on a low-rider bag rail that's integrated
with the fender mount loop. There's plenty of room, I think, to hook the
bag on further forward but I suspect they mounted it back for the photo
session so as not to obscure the nice red anodised Rohloff. Other Santos
Travel Lite pics show a more substantial looking platform rack but it
looks to be a miserably designed item with 90% of the platform behind
the rear axle. It looks like the bags can be mounted further forward on
the low-rider rail which does however have a 20kg weight limit according
to the text.
The rules haven't changed. Getting baggage weight too far behind the
rear axle still produces squirrelly handling. The Long Haul Truckers
have unusually long rear chainstays at 46cm so that you CAN get the bag
weight over the axle and still have heel-room when pedaling. Compare
that with Surly Cross Check, grandpas cyclocross frame with chainstays
of 42.5cm. My antique Peugeot PGN10 measures 41cm. Surlys own Nice Rack
rear rack in Cr.Moly steel works well on many Surly frames and many
other brands with a design that places the nose of the platform well
forward of the rear axle.
Even with largish tyre and fender the Trucker still has a cavernous
space between fender and seat-tube but it's made that way in the
interests of weight distribution when loaded.
My Trucker frame started its life with me over seven years ago with a
Rohloff but I didn't like the Rohloff spring arm chain tensioner made
necessary by the Truckers downward facing rear dropouts. The Rohloff has
since migrated to a Surly Troll frame with rearward facing "track style"
fork ends with much room for moving the axle for chain tensioning. I
still don't love that whirring Germanic coffee grinder. It's grime proof
and has a wide range for dirt road touring. But I find the even 13%
steps throughout the range to be a pain when trying to pick things up a
bit on good smooth surfaces. If there's a head wind or a steady incline
the gear I'm in is always either too high or too low for the conditions.
The Trucker frame now with Shimano XT 9 speed is more satisfactory with
closer ratios in the top half of the gear range.
PH