Well, i thought I had the perfect answer to how to carry a dry bag on the front of my bike without strapping it to the handlebars: the Nitto M12 front rack.
This little beauty attaches to the hole in the fork crown and the cantilever bosses, and weighs only 250 grams — that’s less than 9 ounces!
Well, the rack arrived today and unfortunately, there isn’t nearly enough clearance between the arms for a 3.8″ tire. D’oh! Why didn’t I see that coming?
Still, this seems clearly to be the right approach to carrying a light load on the front of the bike. All the other racks on the market are twice as heavy, and are way overbuilt for carrying a 5-10 pound load. There is a shop here in town whose owner does his own TIG welding, and I’m going to see if he’s interested in taking on a project like this.
Salsa Cycles minimalist? http://salsacycles.com/components/minimalist_rack/
Thanks for the link, I didn’t know about this one. But at 527 grams, I hope I can do better than that. I want one front and rear so any weight savings is doubled!
Axiom (Norco) in Canada carries these beefy tubular aluminum models that are quite a bit wider than the m12:
http://www.axiomgear.com/archive/gear/racks/front-racks/front-platform-support/
I abused one with 20 lbs of gear on a trip to Iceland and it performed beautifully. Only $25, too!
This thing looks promising, but can you post some measurements? I’d hate to order one and have to send it back too, like I did with the Nitto. I’d like to know the inside width between the struts, also the distance between the two canti mounting holes. Thanks!