What's best: A front or back basket on your bike?

[Music] what's better for carrying stuff on your bike a basket on the front or a basket on the back hi everyone i'm tom and this is shifter a channel about urban cycling and bike commuting welcome to all you new subscribers and if you like this video please consider hitting that subscribe button so there are a million different types of bike baskets out there i don't want to spend a lot of time on the specifics of each of these models because this isn't about these exact baskets it's more about the idea of front or back baskets but if you're wondering these are both sort of simple mid-range wire basket this one's called an evo r basket classic they're both removable racks this one slides right on and off which is which is important to me as a cyclist because i don't want to always have my basket on there and this rack on the back is an axiom market basket lx it affixes to the back rack through clamps nice strong clamps i'll put links to both of these baskets in the description but let's get testing my first test is riding with these baskets empty i just wanted to test them out so the back rack the first thing you notice is absolutely nothing i clamp it on there and i forget about it it's almost like it's not even there the front basket on the other hand i do feel it it does affect my steering ever so slightly this is a nice light rack so it's not too bad but it definitely bounces around a bit there is the aesthetics of a basket to think about too which one looks better uh they're both pretty simple inconspicuous wire baskets and i think it's kind of a matter of preference some people just like the look of a front basket some people like the look of the back basket but there is some difference in getting on and off the bike with the front basket i barely even noticed getting on and off it but in the back one you really have to stretch your leg a lot farther if that's the way you get on your bike so that's something to consider one other thing with the front basket is when it's even when it's not loaded it does kind of adjust just kind of pull down the front handlebar so if you've got a kickstand you've got to be a bit careful because it can pull it right off so overall in the category of empty baskets i'm giving this one to the back basket about 32 pounds so why am i weighing a bag of groceries with a luggage scale because it's time for test two which is the grocery test for me anyway the most common use of a bike basket is to pick up groceries so what i've done here is collect a 32 pound load of groceries and we are going to test them in both the front and the back basket okay let's start with the back basket the listed carrying capacity of this basket was 25 kilos or about 55 pounds so there should be plenty of capacity oh and look at that just this grocery bag just slides right into that basket nice and easy or the other thing is you can just take these two handles from the basket and take that through the grocery store as well but that was an easy fix let's take it for a ride and see how it feels okay so i've run a little bit with this load of groceries in the back basket and i gotta say it's pretty good i barely even notice it's there once you get rolling that extra weight is only noticeable really on hills i did notice a bit on when i stand up and accelerate or when i move my bike when i'm off of it that that back weight does sort of make the whole bike back heavy obviously but pretty manageable on the corners you notice it a little bit like i'm leaning a little less than i might normally because i'm worried about that back weight but even when i'm turning quickly or sharply it's not making a huge difference on my ride so there's a couple things to notice right off the bat with this front rack the grocery bag wouldn't fit in here so i took some of the groceries out and just placed them right in here directly not as convenient if you're a grocery bag shopper also this rack did not come listed with a carrying capacity that i could find it's definitely not as big as the back rack so i'm not going to put that much weight in it i think there's maybe 10 or 12 kilos here i'm thinking maybe 20 25 pounds max capacity for this rack another thing is too once it's full even when i'm trying to get on the bike you really have to be careful with that extra weight it just really wants to pull your handlebars down to the ground it's definitely a different experience from riding with the groceries in the back i definitely feel the weight especially on the corners when i lean into a corner it's really pulling me i'm trying to be really careful it's nice to be able to see the groceries you can see what's in your basket i mean if you've got something valuable or i don't know a purse or a wallet in there it's nice to be able to see it rather than in the back where you can't see it but for this extra weight on here i don't know it's making me nervous this one's kind of a no-brainer when it comes to the grocery test because of its extra carrying capacity and security and all those other things i talked about this one's going to the back rack so next up is the weight test whoa okay i'm done so the grocery test that i just did was a nice measure of sort of the convenience of putting a bunch of stuff in there but here i really want to test the weight and obviously it's not a fair test because the back racks weight capacity is just a whole bunch bigger than the front one i'd say it's probably double than the front one so it's not necessarily about how much weight it can take it's how does the basket act with that weight so what i'm going to do is take some dumbbells an equal amount i've got 30 pounds i'm gonna put 30 pounds in the front right around 30 pounds in the back and just see what the riding difference is like i've been riding around with 30 pounds in the back basket for a while now and i've been looking for a place to do some circles here we go so 30 pounds in the back is totally manageable um yes i definitely feel the weight on these corners when i'm doing circles in the middle of intersections there's no traffic here it's a college campus and there's no students doing circles like this is really easy i don't even i can notice the weight in the back but it's not slowing me down it's barely affecting my uh agility is that the word i'm still able to steer as much as i need to on a hill you definitely feel the weight of course but overall pretty good for the back rack so there it is 30 pounds in the front i've been doing some laps doing some loops around here trying to get used to the feeling it's definitely a lot different than when the weight was in the back uh it needs practice i'm riding pretty tentatively for a couple of reasons one is i'm worried about breaking the rack with this much weight i think it's probably over the capacity but it's not listed so i don't know and also it has a huge impact on my steering uh whenever i turn i feel that weight pulling and i've felt like i was gonna slow slow roll into a curb a couple times until i could recover so based on total capacity and the impact on maneuverability the weight test is going to the back rack three nothing for the back rack so far let's move on i'm calling this next test the convenience test and the thought here is sometimes you want access to the thing that you're carrying maybe it's your camera maybe it's your water bottle maybe it's a container of oat milk left over from your grocery test yeah either way the test here is how easy can you grab stuff so front basket bam drinking my oat milk drinking my oat milk back in the basket that is great that is a 10 out of 10 for convenience oh i got it i had to fish around back there it can work but you can't really see what's going on back there it's an awkward stretch so finally the front basket takes a category the convenience test goes to the front basket time for the fifth and final test and this is the one i was really looking forward to we're calling it the bounce test so sometimes when you've got things in a basket and you hit a bump it pops out it's it's one of the disadvantages of a basket compared to a bag or a pannier is that it's got no roof on it so things can pop out but it's hard to tell what is better the front or the back basket so what i've done is about 100 balls i'm gonna try to put 50 in each basket i'm hearing us in a field with lots of bumps and rocks and that sort of thing i'm gonna ride through it see how many balls bounce out at the end we'll count them up and determine which one is better two four forty eight fifty 50 in the back it's gonna be tight yes they will fit 50 in the front 50 in the back all right let's go for a ride [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow that was harder it was harder to get rid of the balls than i expected i had to ride really hard and both baskets actually did pretty well i actually had to steer for some holes some potholes to actually really get the balls moving out of there so maybe it's not as big of a problem as i thought it was anyway let's uh count them up two four 20 in the front so we lost 30 balls out of the front basket two four and 33 were remaining in the back basket so actually pretty close i thought it would be not as close the back basket won by a smidge so probably due to its bigger volume a bigger size the balls were just had more had to jump higher to get out but hmm interesting so the ball test goes to the back basket but just barely and so there you have it in four out of the five categories the back basket is the winner so pretty clear choice that the back basket is superior for carrying stuff for your practical bike rides that's not to say there's no value in a front basket i think there's some definitely some situations where the backpack or the front basket is preferred if you really want to keep an eye on your stuff if you've got a purse or something important you want to put out there you could definitely go for that front basket but otherwise i'd say for practical purposes for cargo carrying capabilities the back basket is the clear winner i hope that helped i know which basket i'll be choosing in the future thanks for watching see you next time [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Shifter

Views: 115,947

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Id: A1NgPFiBu_k

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021