I bought this bike and had the person in the shop attach a rear bike rack but it is not level and is tucked under the seat. It looks like the attachment arm is too short but I cannot find a longer replacement one online and don’t want to buy a whole new bike rack (but I will if I have to). Any suggestions on what to do/ where to buy a longer attachment arm that works for this mount? Any help is much appreciated, thanks!
by Owlstoe
7 Comments
any bike shop worth it’s salt will have a drawer full of extra rack mount hardware.
Rack install is, almost universally, a bit of a hack. You have an inexpensive rack, and it’s installed as intended. This setup will carry panniers. A bit more arm would get this to level but aren’t going to radically change your experience.
Your options are to scavange a longer attachment of some kind, or buy a better looking rack. Axios Streamliner (minimalist) or Planet Bike KOKO (maximalist) are two I like.
If you have a bicycle collective in your town they probably have a bin of spare rack arms.
Honestly, if it were my bikeshop, i would go back and ask them to level it. They probably have the spares somewhere.
This looks lazy for a bikeshop.
There might even be available slot in the arm for you to level your rack. Look underneath and see if the slot is maxxed out. The arms are expected to be bent by the installer into the best shape for a particular bike.
That is actually a decent rack for this basic bike. With only a single arm I wouldn’t put a child seat and a kid on it but it is fine for 15lbs of groceries in panniers of a top mounted crate.
how does the bottom part of the rack look like? perhaps you can move it further down, that would get the top a bit more level.
The rack is definitely not mounted properly, but my bigger concern is that rear brake, that type of brake is barely better than useless and it is absolutely worth your time and money to spend $20 on decent quality brakes that will actually stop your bike when you need them to.