replied direct to your email james 😉
Hi James, I tried to get hold of a Pizza rack too for ages, but they don’t seem to be easy to come by unless you import form the US, but when they started turning up on the 2016 bikes in the UK I went to the LBS to have a nosey and I’ve actually gone off them a bit for a few reasons.
1 – they only mount to the low-rider boses and crown, NOT to the dropout eyelets so they’re not as well supported as they look
2 – the pannier mount bar is actually quite high up the leg, good for ground clearance but unless you are using massive panniers it puts the weight quite high up.
3 – it’s Aluminium, not an issue for light loads but I don’t think it’ll be robust enough with panniers AND stuff on top, especially given point 1.
I’ve actually gone for a combo of two racks, a normal front rack with normal width top platform, and a Tubus Tara lowrider rack for the panniers, overall it gives pretty much the same options, but with better support, better weight placement and the only downside is a slightly reduced width top platform, together they actually come in a smidge lighter than most full porteur racks too, and it keeps the loads independent too which is handy at times.
If you want an alternative to the pizza rack the best one out there at the moment seems to be the Soma Deluxe Porteur rack, the Velo Orange one looks like a good bet if you just want the porteur platform, but it doesn’t have any pannier mount bars lower down.