Touring options - save me £800

[philelmer]

Evening all.

I've been musing over doing an end to end for a while, and as you do, have been poking around on ebay for a suitable steed. However it occurred to me that rather than buy yet another toy, it might make more sense (financially at least) to use my mountain bike. (rockhopper)

Now this brings into question luggage. There's no way I'm riding 800 miles with a rucksack on my back, but is it possible to mount a pannier rack on a bike that doesn't have eyelets? If anyone's got one, can you post a picture of how it's mounted?

I've seen the ones that clamp onto a seatpost but I'm not sure I'd trust all the weight of 2 weeks' holiday on one pivot point. However if you've used one without breaking anything then I'd consider it.

Cheers,
Phil

[snotrag]

We used to have a big box of assorted rubber covered p-clips, put them round the stays, et voila, rack mounts. Ask at your LBS. (I think it was ison distribution that used to provide them, if it helps)

[BadgerBenji]

The seatpost mount racks have a weight limit, it is usually on a label on the underneath.

ID do the P clips as mentioned, but depending on the terrain and how much you are taking, i personally would not want to use them. What material is your frame made from?

[philelmer]

The frame's aluminium. That was my concern with the P-clips too. I used to have a similar arrangement on my Raleigh Mustang (in the days when 120 quid was an expensive mountain bike) but that was steel-framed and milled from solid iron.

I guess I'd try to keep it as light as possible, and wasn't planning on doing any laden offroading, (unplanned forays over hedges and into fields on the way back from the pub excepted) but then it might only take one pothole on a downhill stretch at 30mph to crack the seat stays. Which is essentially why I was asking if anyone had any experience with them.

Cheers for the replies so far though....

[BadgerBenji]

It wasnt the thought of the frame cracking that was concerning me, it was more the shimmy when a heavily laden bike, because of rigidity in the frame basically takes on speed wobble, and is not very nice to ride.

[mk1fan]

Cycling Plus this month have an article about converting an MTB for Touring duties. Coincidentaly they used a late 90's Rockhopper (steel version).

From reading the piece they still speant a couple of hundred quid but that's better than eight.