Hudski Bikes Itzarack Front Rack Review

compose Miles Arbour
time Nov 17, 2021
comment 3

When I received the Hudski Doggler for review, they also sent along a front rack for me to check out. While it wasn’t available at the time, and the instructions were sketched out by hand on a piece of paper, I put some pretty serious mileage on the mystery rack, including a heavily loaded overnighter for our Good Night 2020 campout and lots of loaded day rides. Hudski just announced that the racks are now available, so we put together some thoughts and additional details here. Learn all about the new Hudski Itzarack below.

Without any information to go on, Hudski’s front rack initially reminded me of Pelago’s Commuter Front Rack. Like the Pelago, Hudski’s version has both an oversized cargo platform and horizontal mounting points for panniers that are positioned lower than the top platform. This allows for the platform and side rails to be used at once, positioning your favourite panniers closer toward the ground and leaving a clean platform on top for baskets, bags, and other cargo. The two legs of the rack bolt to the top platform, which allows for the rack to be dissembled and packed smaller for travel—although this does create the potential for obvious failure points and it means having to check more bolts more often. The fork crown mount has a sliding design to help accommodate different frame designs, and the lower brackets have three pre-drilled holes depending on the location of the fork’s attachment points. There’s also a small threaded hole on the front of the main platform for mounting a light.

The top platform offers a generous 330mm wide by 270mm long perch, which happens to fit a Wald 137 basket nearly perfectly. Since the legs are offset underneath the main platform, anything you attach to the horizontal rails sits closer to the front wheel, providing more clearance on tight trails and keeping the weight tucked in toward the centre of the bike. The legs are a fixed length, so the only real adjustments are achieved using the fork crown mount or lower attachment points. While this design may not be as versatile as something like Surly’s 24-Pack Rack, it should work well on most bikes with a drilled fork crown and lower rack mounting points.

The rack doesn’t have a whole lot to offer as far as adjustment goes, and I expect it was designed specifically for the Hudski Doggler. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for other bikes just as well. As long as your fork has mounts near the front axle and a drilled fork crown, there’s a good chance it will work. The Doggler uses a non-boost, 100mm wide front hub and has clearance for 29 x 2.25″ or 27.5 x 2.6″ tires. It’s probably safe to use these specs as a benchmark for what the Itzarack will fit best on.

The lower mounting points on the Doggler are about 127mm apart, and the legs of the rack are flexed—but not aggressively—out to this position. There’s 355mm of clearance from the lower mounting points to the bottom of the top platform, and there is 152mm of horizontal clearance between the two rack legs where it secures to the fork crown. Although I think the legs could flex out some more, I wouldn’t be inclined to push it, so I could see there being some compatibility issues on bikes with wider hub standards or oversized, beefy fork legs.

• Load Capacity: 15kg (33lbs)
• Material: TIG welded aluminum
• Weight: 700 grams
• Place of Manufacture: Taiwan
• Price: $90 USD
• Manufacturer’s Details: HudskiBikes.com

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