Hi all, I'm quite puzzled by an experience I had yesterday on my commute with the Atlantis. It was configured with my medium Shopsack filled with the usual tools, camera, jeans on the front basket on Nitto mini and on the back I had a new configuration with the Nitto Big Back rack (I had a smaller R15 previously to support the medium Saddlesack) and two Ortlieb Commuter bags where I had my laptop in a thick leather padded sleeve, a rain jacket and a couple of clothing items.
As someone else noted, the Nitto Big Back rack for 700c large bikes pushes the bags quite rearward. After selling the Hunqapillar, I decided to configure the Atlantis for full loaded capabilities, which is why I removed the R-15 and replaced it with the BBR. BTW, I never tried carrying the Ortlieb Commuter bags on the R15, even though it supports carrying panniers on it. On the morning 15.5 mile ride to work, everything was well and on the short climbs out of the underpasses on the Guadalupe trail, I was climbing standing up and feeling very good and strong. I've always had a hard time standing to pedal, but I guess as I'm riding more, the legs are getting stronger and this was the first time I noticed I felt strong climbing standing up. It's not for long, but long enough where in the past, my legs would stiffen up and my pedaling would be all jerky with noticeable stops at the bottom of the stroke. This time if felt quite smooth and powerful. On the way back, as it was warmer, I had a few more clothing items on the rear bags plus a few spare parts (shifters) I had ordered and received. It didn't seem a lot to me. On the ride back to catch the train in San Jose, all of a sudden, when standing to climb standing out of the underpasses, the bike started shimmying terribly to the point that I thought I had a flat tire or the rear wheel had tacoed, but the wheel was all true and fine. Then I noticed that even while pedaling @ 14 - 16mph, the bike wanted to shimmy and if I took my hands off the handlebar or took one off to drink water, for example, it would start the shimmy. Note that this is riding flat terrain or climbing out of the saddle. Thinking back to the morning ride, I realized that I had noticed a light shimmy tendency when removing one hand from the handlebar to drink water or shift (downtube shifters) and had the same experience during the weekend when riding the Homer with its load (lock, vest and tools) in the Acorn saddlebag. At the time, I attributed it to my lack of finesse when shifting and holding on to the bar with one hand. I'm going to see if removing the rear bags eliminates this, or if a heavier rear load enhances it. I'm also going to place the front load lower on low riders/panniers to see how that affects the handling. However, I'm quite puzzled and was wondering if there was any feedback from anyone else who has experienced this when climbing standing. Note the Atlantis has the low trail fork but the Homer doesn't. And I not experienced any shimmy on the Atlantis with front loads and no rear loads of significance, except for the tools in the small Saddlesack. Thanks for any suggestions or feedback! René -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
