How much weight would you carry?

[aBicycle]

In rear panniers on a cross check? Seems to get squirrely over 30lbs to me.

[osprey]

I think it depends on the rack. I have had at least 40 pounds with no problems.

[bolandjd]

And depends on how the weight is distributed.

[aBicycle]

How should it be distributed in the rear?

[c_m_shooter]

Mine gets squirrely with weight on the rear. The low rider rack up front is best for the heavy stuff.

[HardyWeinberg]

keep the weight towards the middle of the bike (center of rear rack load in front of rear hub, center of front rack load behind front hub)

[johnny the boy]

i recently carried an 82lb load on the back of my ogre. sketchy as hell. my bars were wobbling all over the place. good thing it was just home from the grocery store 4 miles away....

[aBicycle]

Is it better to have the panniers further forward and angled to avoid heel strike, or should I have them perpendicular to the ground (straight upright) and as far forward as I can have them without heel strike, although not as far forward as they'd be if angled?


And what kind of effect would having front panniers have on the handling? I was thinking that 25-30lbs is the most I should have in the rear on this bike. And then the same up front.

[c_m_shooter]

Front panniers on a low rider rack make the bike more stable. I haven't carried anything up high in the front, so I don't know how that would go. I rode from Fort Worth to Corpus with two front panniers and one rear. It handled good the entire time.

[HardyWeinberg]

Is it better to have the panniers further forward and angled to avoid heel strike, or should I have them perpendicular to the ground (straight upright) and as far forward as I can have them without heel strike, although not as far forward as they'd be if angled?

I would say you want the center of the load on each rack as far toward the center of the bike as possible and that might or might not benefit from angling in the rear.

And what kind of effect would having front panniers have on the handling? I was thinking that 25-30lbs is the most I should have in the rear on this bike. And then the same up front.

Somewhere I read that it's better to frontload the bike when you have 4 panniers, (something to do w/ balancing out most of the load on the bike which is your body and that is distributed 60/40 or 70/30 back/front).

When I do have 4 panniers and also something heavy/dense to pack I frontload my LHT (also 60/40 or 70/30 or even 80/20) and it always works great (books, apples, other dense stuff). I have never run 4 panniers on any other frame.

I have backloaded my LHT pretty hard too and it has never gotten to what I would call squirelly but it's not as amazing as when frontloaded.