# Overlander bike gear - hard mount bike packing system



## tigerteeuwen (Jul 29, 2014)

In Red Deer, Alberta Canada we had a bike packing summit at our local shop Mud Sweat and Gears to talk about planning group rides and talk about bike gear.

A local company has started up in our little city with some new ideas. Hard mount rack systems with very simple mounting. I was pretty stoked after seeing the racks and thought I would share some photos.

A front rack system design for securing a dry bag system to with adequate clearance for the fork and adequate space for those brake and shifter cables to breath, no rubbing the headtube paint off, no cables binding. Also they have two bottle mounts internally on the front rack mount.

They had two really unique fork mount systems. One designed for mounting two water bottles too and one designed for a small dry bag. It can secure to either the fork or the 3 fork boss mount.

A rear rack, one mounting point-two bolts - not complicated. You can retain your dropper post! They are coming out with a race version that will be a bit lighter then the version I have pictures of too.

I got my hands on some of the racks from overlander a few weeks after the summit and have been running them for the past week.( Still waiting on the dropper post compatible rear rack though.)

So far, everything seems to work really well. One big thing I noticed right away was no need to retighten and check my load continuously. I have been riding my bike on a mix of single track and gravel roads. I was running my heavier tent about 5.5 pounds and had my sleeping Mat on the fork, one water bottle cage mounted.

Weights seems good - 600 grams for the front rack ( to put into perspective my Blackburn frame bag weighs 450 grams)

If anyone has any questions or suggestions I would love to hear them* and pass on the info to overlander

(Tony at overlander rides the Evil - I have a Torrent and will soon try the setup on my Fuel EX)









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## vikb (Sep 7, 2008)

tigerteeuwen said:


> So far, everything seems to work really well. One big thing I noticed right away was no need to retighten and check my load continuously. I have been riding my bike on a mix of single track and gravel roads. I was running my heavier tent about 5.5 pounds and had my sleeping Mat on the fork, one water bottle cage mounted.
> 
> Weights seems good - 600 grams for the front rack ( to put into perspective my Blackburn frame bag weighs 450 grams)
> 
> If anyone has any questions or suggestions I would love to hear them* and pass on the info to overlander


I don't check my front bar bag continuously when riding. Typically after getting the gear attached to the bike in the morning I might adjust it once after half an hour and it's good for the day until I unload it. If you are constantly adjusting your front bag you either loaded it poorly or the harness is a dud. That's not normal.

Not sure why you compared the weight of the front rack to a frame bag. For interest sake I weighed the Porcelain Rocket harness for my front roll bag and it's 150g. The dry bag itself is another 100g.

My advice for designing and manufacturing bikepacking gear would be to look at the state of the art and figure out how to make it:

1. simpler
2. lighter
3. more robust
4. added functionality

If your product is a lot heavier, more complex and doesn't add any functionality/robustness over what's state of the art currently it's hard to see the appeal.


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## tigerteeuwen (Jul 29, 2014)

vikb said:


> I don't check my front bar bag continuously when riding. Typically after getting the gear attached to the bike in the morning I might adjust it once after half an hour and it's good for the day until I unload it. If you are constantly adjusting your front bag you either loaded it poorly or the harness is a dud. That's not normal.
> 
> Not sure why you compared the weight of the front rack to a frame bag. For interest sake I weighed the Porcelain Rocket harness for my front roll bag and it's 150g. The dry bag itself is another 100g.
> 
> ...


I think a system like this really spoke to me because a lot of things made sense about it to me when I initially saw it.

One thing I felt was more robust was the handlebar rack because I feel I would answer some problems in regard to potential head tube length and tire clearence issues - cable rub - no swing or sagging of the handlebar harness - it mounts with urethane blocks - once removed I am thinking it won't have the issue of the rubbing through the paint of the bars ( I experienced this on what I used - not speaking for all brands of course.)

I also really liked the idea of the inner plates facing the rider, being able to use water bottle cages - (I do not like drinking through hydration packs myself)

I think Tony was saying with the relevate harness for example people are having issues with it sliding down (depending on the load of course) which has been addressed by some with a bar on the backside of the stem?

(Just a side note I only compared the weight to my frame bag because that's the only thing I have an actual weight on, haha)

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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

The answer is in simplicity, and in a sort of hippocratic oath to do no harm. That cantilevered rear rack does the opposite to the way a bike handles. On a gravel road, no big deal. On trail, it's a very big deal.

Ditto with adding 40+ ounces of water to one side of a fork -- it changes everything.

I'm all for innovation and creative problem solving. The products shown here, at first blush, seem less like innovations than sidestepping one problem only to find another.


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## tigerteeuwen (Jul 29, 2014)

mikesee said:


> The answer is in simplicity, and in a sort of hippocratic oath to do no harm. That cantilevered rear rack does the opposite to the way a bike handles. On a gravel road, no big deal. On trail, it's a very big deal.
> 
> Ditto with adding 40+ ounces of water to one side of a fork -- it changes everything.
> 
> I'm all for innovation and creative problem solving. The products shown here, at first blush, seem less like innovations than sidestepping one problem only to find another.


I still haven't received my rear rack so I can't comment on the effect your referring to yet and how noticble it is.

I would say it would obviously depend on the total weight of the load - and to be fair I would like to compare how it felt compared to my seat bag.

So far I have been testing the setup on my 27.5+ hardtail on a variety of gravel and single track.

Not sure why the fork mount is being singled out either, you have the option to run 1 or 2 bottles (I have seen pictures of people running large neligan bottles on there own setups.which are much larger)

The other fork mount had the ability to run with an additional bottle mount or just the small dry back rack system.

I had a look at relevates semi ridigid harness as well. The weight I believe was 400grams +/- 50 and one of the issues also with it was the it can become water logged (not sure how much additional weight that would add) with this in mind though I would say the front rack is even more respectible weight Wise and more versatile.

I still need to test these racks quite a bit more - get a long term review. (Will be putting them through a big epic 1000km race this June - hopefully I can finish - probably won't run the rear rack since I won't be running a dropper)

Would love to hear some more comments that I could pass on to Tony though.

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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

tigerteeuwen said:


> I still haven't received my rear rack so I can't comment on the effect your referring to yet and how noticble it is.
> Not sure why the fork mount is being singled out either, you have the option to run 1 or 2 bottles (I have seen pictures of people running large neligan bottles on there own setups.which are much larger)


I should have belabored the point that I love to see new ideas expressed, and that is certainly happening here.

This rear rack places the load not only high but really far back. I had a similar rack fabricated years ago so that I could do multi-day trips with full suspension -- this was ~10 years before dropper posts existed, and as such the load could be much closer to the seat post, and much lower to the ground. And it still, no matter how lightly I loaded it nor how I placed that load within the pack, changed the bike's handling in unacceptable ways on singletrack. I didn't ride that bike on gravel so I can't say if it mattered there, though I doubt it would. I'd also wonder why you'd want FS and a dropper on gravel.

As to the bottles, whether there's one, two, three, or four is irrelevant to me -- that's too much weight on the fork for singletrack. Not dissing on his design so much as the idea that that amount of weight on the fork is a dealbreaker for actual, technical trail riding. I'd love to see something -- a bag or a vessel of some sort -- that addresses keeping the weight tight to the fork even if that means a long cylinder of some sort.

Like you I'd prefer to not have a pack on my back. But if I have to do that to ride singletrack with a multi-day load, it's far preferred to my load steering the bike against my will.

Thanks for sharing,

MC


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