Hello, I am looking for a light yet strong hardtail frame that will be able to take a rack. The reason being that I have a five year old I would like to take with me on the  bike using a trailer-bike and the one I have is rack-mounted rather than attaching to the seatpost - a Burley Piccolo. The Piccolo is made of steel, which is none too light and in any case I would quite like a decent lightish frame for trail-riding, when the  trailer-bike is detached. I've looked at several frames, but none of them seem to have mounts for a rear rack. I am loathe to just drill a couple of holes in the rear stays. How have other people got round this problem? Also I would like a frame that doesn't have an oversized head-tube, as I also have a two year old who sits on a crossbar mounted child seat (Centric Safehaven) that requires a normal size headtube.

Cheers,

Tony. 

Inbred or a 456?

I think they have mounts. 

I've carried my 52kg girlfriend round on an Old Man Mountain Sherpa rack that doesn't require drillings or braze-ons. Tubus also now do kits that allow you to use their racks on bikes with no fittings. Get one of those and you can buy any frame you want.

Ah, think you mean the trailer mounts to the rack fittings on the frame, so no good.

http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/?fn=product&productId=696&categoryId=87

Pretty sure these have mounts as the alu models do and what a price.

excellent bikes to

I guess you *might* be able to run a Saint rear mech, but dont quote me on that.

I do know it would be far from ideal.