4
votes

I'm looking for a bike rack to put on my bike so that I can hookup the baby seat with the bike. However, I don't see anywhere on my bike where I can mount the front bracket arms of the rack to it (please see pic.1). There is place to mount the lower arms, though (as shown in pic.2). Pic.3 shows the whole bike.

Do you know which bike rack can go with this bike?

pic1

pic2

pic3

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  • 1
    chepukha - could you please upload your pictures to SE using the "add image" button found under the Edit link? Seems that Flickr has given your photos the flick and this question is pretty hard to follow without the photos. If you can't find the originals, try googling for your bike model and post a stock photo or something similar.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 9:12

4 Answers 4

6
votes

Your bike looks like it comes equipped with a full-suspension frame, and the suspension mechanism is located where one would usually attach the rack stays. This will make attaching a rear rack extremely difficult, and almost certainly less secure.

I don't recommend attaching a rear rack to this bike, particularly not one that will be holding a child seat.

Instead, you could look into a child trailer. (For more information on child seats compared to child trailers, have a look at this answer.) Please note that pulling a trailer with any full-suspension bike can cause problems (see the comments).

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  • Thanks a lot for your quick response, Neil. That really makes sense.
    – chepukha
    Commented Sep 5, 2011 at 5:07
  • 4
    Most trailers are also not supposed to be mounted to full-suspension frames. The reason being that the suspension movement is damping the movement over the rear wheel, but the trailer is someway behind the rear wheel. This can cause significant jolting to the trailer. Generally for a rear rack or trailer - particularly to carry a child, you want a bike with no rear suspension. Commented Sep 5, 2011 at 8:23
1
vote

You could use a rack that attaches at the brake bolt. Of course, the rack would get some extra jouncing from the suspension. That appears to be a fairly small wheel, though, so you'd need a rack designed for small wheels (so the front rack strap to the brake bolt wouldn't be excessively long).

Best bet is to find a shop that carries a variety of racks and try them on.

(Of course, anything you find is apt to be less than ideal to support a child seat.)

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    Thanks. If it's not secure for the kids, I would rather get another bike, though.
    – chepukha
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 7:06
  • I think it could be made secure if you could somehow lock the suspension. The back and forth jiggle would be bad otherwise, though -- not really an issue of how secure it is. Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 11:26
1
vote

My personal preference for child seats is a Wee Ride or Yepp or other brand of seat that holds the child between your arms while riding.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7049/7007313918_bcf7f1f6a8_b.jpg

Upsides - child is between your arms and you can see them easily. They get a decent view of the road, not the rider's backside. The fitment bar is secure between seatpost and headset, but the seat itself can be removed or moved to another bike. Plus they work on full-suspension bikes as well as rigids and hard tails. The weight distribution is good unlike a rear child seat which makes the back of the bike super-top-heavy. Kid's foot boxes make semi-good front fenders in the wet.

Downsides - they're not cheap. Riding with the seat in place may interfere with your knee movements leading to some knee strike or knees splayed outward. Center-handlebar mounted things are harder to get to (your garmin perhaps?) Your waterbottle is fine but is harder to get to so stop to drink. You can only use them for a few years till the kid is too big.

And the biggest downside? The stoker's not pulling their weight!

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    Why not add the child seat to the front of the bike, either on or just below the handle bars? Or have a seat bike seat (saddle) added to your frame for the child in that position?
    – Willeke
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 16:51
  • @Willeke same problem with weight distribution. An extra 10 kilos on the steering is significant, and it weights the front wheel more. Balanced in the middle works best. The "saddle in the middle of top tube" works for larger kids who can hold the bars a bit and balance themselves more - these seats are for smaller/younger kids.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 23:53
-1
votes

You might have some luck with a seatpost mounted rack. You may need to raise the seat up a bit on your bike to get it to fit since it seems that there isn't much clearance there. However, these seatpost racks are not strong enough to support a child seat, and with a single point of failure I wouldn't even attempt it. But as a rack for your bike for carrying other things, this would work.

As others have said, the fact that you have rear suspension makes it difficult to attach a rack since usually racks require 2 attachment points, which is hard (impossible??) when the back of the frame needs to move due to suspension. As far as baby seats go, you might want to opt for the Kangaroo child seat which has the seat located between you and the handlebars. Again for this, it looks as though you would have to move your seat up a bit.

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    You want to put a child seat on a seatpost rack? Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 14:22
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    Sorry, didn't read the child seat part. It would work good for a rack, but I wouldn't put my child on there. That's why I recommended the Kangaroo seat. I'll edit to clarify
    – Kibbee
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 14:26

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