I'm a Transporational Cyclist!

Rather than riding in smoke (which I will still do a little tonight), I've been working on bikes and ebikes. I also bought a bunch of bike stuff including a rack -- attention Frank -- a rack for my commuter. My commuter is a warranty replacement CAADX with oddly placed fender bridge bolts: https://tinyurl.com/y4j7yx63

So, I bent some SS brackets to create stay mounts for my super-cool light weight rack. https://www.wiggle.com/tortec-ultralite-rear-rack. Cheap and rigid and good to 50lbs -- but note that there are no lower hook-spots for the paniers. Ooops.

I still have the old Blackburn add-on hooks from the '70s that you stack on the mounting bolt screwed into the dropout eyelet, but alas, my beater commuter bag has spring loaded s-hooks that will not reach down to the eyelet. They will barely get to the tube junction on the rack legs. Waaah. I noted, however, that there were vent holes in the back side of the tubes above the junction, so I tapped those both sides to 5mm (no drilling needed -- hole size was perfect for the tap) and put in a little SS M5 cap screw that acts as a hook. Works perfectly.

I'm going to zip tie the dyno wires to my fork and go for a ride with my pannier. The only reason I'm doing this is to justify my slowness. People will not expect me to be fast with my rack, pannier and dyno light. There is nothing in my pannier, but I may fill it with those blow-up bag packing things from the ebike unboxing just to give the impression I'm hauling a load..

-- Jay Beattie.