My Thule Pack'n Pedal saga

[pagheca]

After many attempts to buy a Thule Pack'n Pedal for my full suspension ebike, which failed because sellers would not ship here or did not have it in stock, I finally got one bought on Black Friday on Amazon.de.

At first glance mounting it well is not exactly trivial, with many bits and pieces to be carefully selected and assembled, but the question I have now is whether to mount it front or rear, at least to start with it.

The advantages I see of putting it on the front shock absorber would be:
1) the center of gravity would be shifted forward, which is useful in the frequent very steep uphill tracks available here
2) easier to mount on the front suspension absorbers
3) I could see what happens to the bags (or the eventual cat inside the carrier... )
4) less vibration on the pack, I guess

The disadvantages:
1) on steep descents (very frequent here as well) I will run a little more risk of somersaulting
2) the front wheel becomes less maneuverable on uneven terrain
3) According to the attached instructions, the payload becomes slightly less (10 kg vs. 11.3 kg)

What do you guys recommend? Count that the trails here are very bumpy. I don't intend to go on difficult trails, but still on dirt roads yes although very carefully.

Then if I see it goes well I'll buy another one for the trips I plan to take. I attached a picture taken from the internet showing how it works when mounted.

 

[pagheca]

In between chatting (right, Jeremy? ) I installed the rack. In the end I decided to mount it on the rear axle because many blogs say that on the front fork it creates not inconsiderable steering problems. But I can still change my mind in the future.

The weight of the frame is really minimal: 1.1 kg. Very impressive indeed. With the rack comes a nice set of 3 Allen keys and a real "key" to untighten the straps. The design is pretty clever even if a bit complex: there are only 4 screws and 4 ties to tighten. Very easy. The rack can easily adapt to different fork apertures. And there is a set of three different spacers to choose from to make it quite horizontal. Pretty amazingly, the full suspension does not create any problems. Wow. But everything is much easier than it seems at a first glance. And one can remove everything on the fly from the frame without leaving any bit installed.

The installation, done veeeeeery slowly, took me no more than 15 minutes to figure out how it worked, choose the right spacer, and assemble it all.

Next, a (on-) road test. I'll see how it works with a light load to start with.

Two of the four screws to be tightened

One of the two straps to be tightened using the key:

.. and the overall rack installed on my Trek Powerfly 7 F.S. :

The suspension can freely move, absorbing part of the stress on the rack and bags.