Ti 456 – anyone ever carry luggage?

So, I'm slowly being reeled in by the LTHT crowd and currently looking at options.

mmmbop looks really nice and seems to build up well. Carbon 456 looks (to my eye) rather lovely. However, the Ti456 also has rack mounts and so could (in theory) take over the off-road touring role from my wee Ti hardtail.

Is anyone actually using the rack mounts and loading one of these up? What's the handling like and are there any problems?

Ta

Ah well – try again….

Can't help with a Ti 456 but if you want to you can try my steel 456 loaded up. Come round to mine for a ride on it and then you can take it away for a few days, once I get its forks back from the dodgy bike shop. I had a quick spin on a Ti 456, hard to say if its that much better than the steel one although everything else being equal it'' be nearly two pounds lighter. Then again with what you save in money with the steel one you could by some right light bits. Guessing it might be worth fitting adjustable forks and then it might ride better loaded up with the front end a bit lower.

I used a rack once on a South Downs Way trip. I had everything (sleeping bag, thermarest, bivvy bag and some spare clothes) on the rack. Felt weird at first but that's because I have never used one before. It didn't take me long to get used to it though. Kind of gives you a nice planted feel although I did have to remember not to get too excited and try jumping the thing – that didn't work so well. I wound my forks in as well which helped. I also had to bungee the panniers down as well otherwise they'd flap around like dog ears but I doubt that has anything to do with the bike itself.

Here it is ready to go

oh, I forgot the problems. None whilst riding at all. That was a very good experience. Putting the rack on on the other hand was one of those jobs that you think will only take 5mins or so and turned into an hour of sweating and swearing. Problem 1 – the rack I had (Blackburn) has prongs at the bottom of the supporting struts, one of these wanted to be where the brake caliper is so that needed sawing off (prong not caliper). Problem 2 – rack on, back wheel didn't spin. Discs needed aligning in the caliper again. Problem 3 – rack on, brake aligned, wheel not spinning. The bolt that holds the rack on interferes with the bottom ring of the cassette so I had to file the bolt head down to something silly (about 3mms) which made me a little uneasy however it held. Final problem and this was entirely my fault is that I tightened one of the supporting bolts into the frame too much and sheared the bolt. So, last job was to fix this with zip ties (night before so no time to get bolt removed). That held too. Happy days.

All Ragleys LTHT's have dropout eyes for racks, mostly so that, if needed, husbands can convince wives they're going to be able to fit a child seat.

But they are functional, and the between-the-stays caliper position means fitting a rack is simple.

The only catch is that there isn't anything on the seatstays, but P-Clips are solid and easy enough to get for that location.

druidh – Blackburn do a 'disc compatible' rack, thats avoids all the problems whippersnapper described. Fitted mine to my steel 456 in minutes.