Ibera Bike Rack - Bicycle Touring Carrier Plus+ for Non-Disc Brake Mount, Frame-Mounted for Heavier Top & Side Loads, Height Adjustable for 26"-29" Frames

This review will be for 3 items that were purchased to work together, and I will post it as a review for each individual item. Photos show the bags all the way opened and all the way closed in all configurations.Ibera IB-RA5 Touring Carrier + for disc brakesIbera IB-BA14 Expandable Commuter Trunk BagIbera IB-BA9 PanniersMy husband and I bike a lot, and we camp for many weeks during the summer. The bikes always go to the campgrounds with us. We often use them to ride to the beach, other park attractions, or to the store to pick up a few items. I was getting tired of using plastic shopping bags hung over my arm to carry things to the beach or home from the store, and I often wished we had a way to carry snacks or cold drinks with us. Besides, carrying those swinging plastic bags never made me feel very safe. We also usually have our dog along with us on a break-away leash, and we carry our back-pack style folding chairs with us. It is quite a load, and we needed to be able to take it all safely.This rack and the bag/panniers will be the answer!The rack was easy to install on my 26” bike, and we like it so much that we might get the same rack for my husband’s 29” bike. Since it is adjustable, we are hoping it will fit his bike, too! We bought this particular rack, because it was compatible with the bags we wanted to purchase. It provides a nice frame to add accessories to the bike, and, with a little jury rigging, it even accommodated the attachment needed for my existing clip-on red tail light. The tail light is ever more visible on the frame than it was when attacked to the bike itself.We are always looking for flexibility that will allow us to use things in multiple configurations as we need them, and these bags fit that bill! We can use any one of them, two of them or all 3 as long as the bike stays in balance.The panniers are roomy, and there is stiffening for the bottom and sides that either folds or removes to allow the bags to be flattened to take up less room for storage. They will carry our beach towels, other paraphernalia, or a few groceries with ease! Couldn’t be happier with the size! The large pocket in the main compartment has a pull tie to close the inside bag down before closing the top over it, and the straps that hold the top down are adjustable. In addition to the main compartment, there is a smaller pocket on the outside at the top. These panniers will be perfect for beach towels, water floats or a few groceries, and the top pocket will help keep smaller things like books separate and within easy reach. The panniers come with a handle to carry them when off the bike and a nylon rain cover. Great idea!The Expandable Commuter Trunk Bag lives up to its name! The main compartment can expand at the rear to be about 2 inches taller. It has a solid bottom and foam stiffening that would also act a bit like insulation. This main compartment is perfect for taking along some water bottles, snacks or some lunch – or anything else that will fit. There is a smaller top compartment both inside and outside of the bag to help keep smaller items from getting jumbled in the main compartment, and there is a bungee cord on top to keep items like a jacket or (leakproof) water bottle within easy reach. There is another small pocket at the back of the bag for keys or a wallet. The side pockets can be used as they are or unzipped to expand into a longer inner bag that are like small panniers. The bag also comes with a shoulder strap making it easy to take it along when it is off the bike. The one thing I wish it had is a rain cover. Ibera makes one for this model, but we have not been able to find anyone who sells it.The pannier-like side bags of the Commuter Trunk Bag can be used with the regular Pannier bag, although they will lay on the top of the panniers on an angle. I don’t anticipate using the side bags on the Commuter Trunk Bag as pannier extensions when the Panniers are also on the bike anyway, because it would be a bit of overkill, but the pannier extensions will be great when I need a bit longer space but not enough to put on the panniers.These bags are really flexible, and they will let us use just the bags we need while accommodating every use we can think of.As for the quick release feature on all of the bags – OMG! These bags go on and take off within seconds! So easy! We will see whether or not they come off too easily after we have used them for a while, but for now we love the idea and the design!The one drawback? I am at the shortest safe height to use a 26” bike, and the trunk bag will make it harder for me to swing my leg over onto the bike. I can do it by tilting the bike to the side quite a bit, but I won’t be able to bail off quickly. Shorter riders beware! You might need to try this bag on your bike to see whether or not you will be able to get on or off. The panniers are not problem for getting on or off.

Good rack, not designed for bikes with Boost rear axle spacingI knew when I bought this rack that it was designed for the ‘standard’ rear axle spacing of 135mm that is used on bikes with 9mm quick-release skewers, and not the newer ‘Boost’ rear axle spacing of 148mm that is used on most modern mountain bikes that have 148mm x 12mm thru-axles. What that means in practical terms is that the cylindrical spacers provided are twice as long as necessary when the rack is used on a bike with Boost spacing. These spacers are 7/8” long and made of aluminum so they are very easy to cut if you are comfortable with that sort of thing. I simply cut one exactly in half and that made the width of the rack a perfect fit for the mounting lugs on my bike. Shortening the spacers required me to also grind down the length of the provided mounting screws to match the shorter rack+spacer dimension. You could simply go to the hardware store and buy shorter machine screws, but it was easy for me to just grind the provided screws to the length required.There was one other fit issue that was due to the frame geometry of many mountain bikes. The provided front carrier mounting arms were too short to work on my mountain bike. In general the angle of the seat tube mountain bikes use is quite a bit steeper than what was used in the past. The end result of that geometry is that the top rack mounting lugs on the bikes frame are a bit farther forward on the bike than older design bike frames. My bike is a 29er and that also stretches out the length of the bike a bit due to the larger wheel and tire. Bottom line is that the provided front carrier mounting arms are too short. To their credit Ibera does sell longer front carrier mounting arms on their US distributors website and they are a reasonable price. One other small bit of information that may be helpful to anyone trying to order the right parts is that the chainstay length of my bike is pretty short, 440mm. Before I had the actual rack in hand to check the fit, I hoped that short chainstay length might allow me to squeak by with the provided front carrier mounting arms. Even with that fairly short chainstay the arms were still too short for my bike. My guess is that any 29er with longer chainstays would also require the accessory longer front carrier mounting arms. I also bent the carrier mounting arms to match the radius of my tires just because I thought that looked better.I bought the rack knowing that I would have to do a bit of work to make it fit my bike properly. As far as I could determine at the time I bought this no company makes a rack that is specifically designed to fit modern mountain bike dimensions. But this rack can fit perfectly with the addition of the optional longer front carrier mounting arms and just a wee bit of work cutting the supplied cylindrical spacers to the length needed. The rack is good quality, fits perfectly with the changes detailed above, it easily clears my disk brakes, the provided machine screws are excellent quality, and it is rock solid on the bike. Just an FYI for comparison, I have installed the non-disk brake version of this rack on two other bikes in my family, not modern mountain bikes, and those racks fit their bikes perfectly with no modifications or extra work required.

This is the second one I have now both bikes have identical racks and I have a third with the same compatibility. So easy to fit with no sweat. Impressively strong and good looking.Good product

Mounting the item wasn't terribly difficult and the rack itself seems to be of gItod quality. I would say the item is of excellent quality. The rating is marked down because of mounting issues. It fit the bike just fine. As relates to the instructions - larger pictures of mounting with better detail would be very helpful. One small piece on each side I still don't really know which end is up. I figure it is a proprietary design which would explain itself if Ibera paks are used. The additional screws provided were fine to assemble the frame. They were useless in mounting it to the bike. I don't know if this is because its not a high end bike without pre-installed mounting anchors such as for water bottle holders or if it is specific to a particular bike. Bottom line, the additional screws were of no value to me. I solved the problem with a trip to Lowes for some larger metric screws for the fender mounting locations near the rear axle and some self tapping screws to secure it to the frame under the seat. In my first attempt, I anchored it to the seat mounting tube of the frame. This anchored the seat where it couldn't be adjusted vertically. So I anchored it to the frame tubing coming off the seat/upright tube. I suppose this could have all been resolved by adding some additional, larger screws and some type of mounting collar for the upright tube or a flat, two piece clamp running across the two tubes which run from the upright to the axle. Given the variety of bikes and frames, that might not help in wide use..