m-gineering wrote:drossall wrote:Traditionally, luggage is carried on the bike. It's lower to the ground, giving better centre of gravity and balance, and it doesn't tire you carrying it (though you still have to pedal it up hills, except in the NL!).
Aiming for a 'low centre of gravity' on a bicycle? That doesn't help any, it just makes the bike more nervous and with the largest weight 4 feet of the ground you have to carry way to much luggage to make a meaningfull difference.
Hills in the NL (we've got them, just not in Amsterdam) work the same as everywhere, but G is expressed in m/s2 (all 9.81 of it) so maybe that 's confusing.
The gravitational constant is also the reason you don't want a heavy rucksack, your posterior will take a beating for it. Nowt wrong with 9sp XTR if in decent shape, it is probably the last of the MTB groupsets built to last, current stuff is more aimed at the ' it's at most an hours walk back to the car when it fails' customer
A low c of g does make a difference. Yes the rider is the biggest lump of weight on the machine but mounting the luggage lower on the machine, if done sensibly, will improve the loaded handling, it doesn't have to be a huge weight either. Even the couple of inches drop onto the low bar on racks like the Tortec Expedition will make a difference.
A high load will affect balance and cornering adversly, you might get away with it if it's within the frame width (or indeed within the frame) but as soon as you have weight beyond axle width it will affect things. Lowering the c of g will help reduce the effects.