I removed the rear folding rack with wheels on the Tikit when I found out that it had scratched the rear triangle and I never put them back on. When I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t have much need for the rear rack anyway. The rack’s “folding” function wasn’t necessary because my panniers are small, and I rarely folded my bike around to need it to roll with the rack’s little roller wheel.

I did long for a front rack though. Specifically, Bike Friday’s double front rack for a Tikit. One that would fit front panniers and could still pack easily in the bike’s luggage; something I couldn’t figure out how to do with the rear folding rack. The problem was that the Express Tikit was set up with caliper brakes — and the standard double front rack’s tubes couldn’t fit without rubbing those brakes. So I let the thought go, thinking that I would probably need to have something custom made for my bike.

Then…

The manager at MyBikeShop let me know that Bike Friday found a way to get the racks installed on Tikit’s with caliper brakes! All it needed was an adapter of some sort — a metal sleeve tube, in fact — that would stretch out the screw to the forks. Wooohooo! I could finally get a rack on!

Tah dah!

Here’s how it looks like from above.

One teeny weensie minor issue was that the sleeve is slightly short (or the screw is slightly long) and the sleeve would move about, rattling away, while I cycled. It wasn’t much but the noise got annoying after a while. Some people told me to put loctite on the screw (What? Why?) or change the screw to something shorter, while others told me to add some washers to take away the space.

Those suggestions were all good until I got a BRILLIANT one from Wilson. He told me to put some Blu-Tack, that clay-like thing you use to stick posters to walls, and place some between the screw and the metal tube. WHAT THE!?! Why didn’t I think of that?

Good thing I had some Blu-Tack at home. I took out the screw and stretched a thin layer of Blu-Tack on the grooves before shoving it in the metal tube. It’s nice and tight and doesn’t rattle around anymore!

The double front rack is available locally at MyBikeShop, MyBikeShop Too, and LifeCycle and retails for S$145.