Todd stopped by the shop to brainstorm the best setup for an Old Man Mountain Rack on his Surly Pugsley. While we do offer a Cold Springs setup to fit the Pugsley, Todd wasn’t impressed with the setup and had some ideas for improving it. We brainstormed the idea back and forth a bit and in the end Todd was convinced he could bring it all together. Check out his story and pics below.
“I bought a Sherpa rear rack from you to mount on my Pugsley. Didnt like it. I was up there a couple of weeks ago and convinced one of you to sell me a Cold Springs front rack to try. I had to make a couple of custom mounting brackets to make this work. Check it out at MTBR.com” (or see below)
OMM FRONT rack on Pugsley Fork
I did what OMM and the Bike Bag Shop recommended and mounted an OMM Sherpa rear rack on my Pugsley using the standard Pugsley hardware. I didn’t like it – too high, looked funny. Then I got to looking at the Cold Springs front rack my friend Taylor has mounted on his bad ass Coconino and after a little measuring realized that the height and width of the front Cold Springs without mounting hardware was almost identical to the rear Sherpa with hardware. I had to try it.
I ran up to Flag to the Bike Bag Shop and after ignoring their skepticism bought the front rack (minus the aluminum mounting pieces – saved $$). They were sure that the mounting tab on the bottom of the rack would hit the fork blades and worse, the legs of the rack would hit the canti studs which was where I wanted to mount the support struts for the rack. They were correct on both counts. So I had to fabricate a pair of custom aluminum mounting brackets out of a set of coat hooks I had laying around (IKEA hack). Any aluminum flat bar would work. All I needed was a hacksaw, drill and file. I’m not that handy so anyone could do this. I lucked out on the first version – everything fit but just barely. I had to mount the brackets on the outside of the braze-on on the non-drive side using a OMM spacer and on the inside of the braze-on on the drive (offset) side using 4 small washers as spacers. The support struts were almost too short but I was able to get the level within 1/8″. The photo showing the spacing from the front is distorted – the rack is pretty much centered. The rack is also lower and more centered that the previous rack mount and looks better IMHO.