I want to buy a front rack for this summer's tour. In the last few years I've just used a rear rack (Surly "nice rack") using two large panniers and camping kit on top of the rack. Plus a bar bag for stuff I want to hand. This has been fine, but the panniers often get very full if we stop off for supplies. (ie I can only get a couple of cans of beer in each
)
So this year I want a couple of small front panniers to give a bit of extra capacity as we're going to Europe.
I was going to get a front Surly "nice rack" to match the rear as they're extremely robust BUT they are also extremely expensive!
I've become acutely aware of how much money I've spunked on bikes in the last few years, so it's time to stop always buying the most expensive kit and only getting kit that I actually NEED.
So would a rack that costs less than a third of the price of the SNR be any good? Such as the
Blackburn Lowrider ?
I only want to use small front panniers, so the rack won't need to be as massively over engineered as the SNR.
So any recommendations for reasonably priced front rack/small front pannier combos would be much appreciated
Cheers,
Rob.