After an amount of swearing, Lev is now sporting the ‘low-rider’ front pannier racks I removed from Vilior. Doesn’t he look smart, even in close-up!

I’ve built in necessary clearance for the disk-brake mechanism. To do this, I used the spacers I happened to have to hold the racks out from Lev’s front forks. These are:

• tapered pieces with internal M6 thread up to about 2mm shy of the top of the taper (I think these may have been brake ferrels.)
• non-tapered pieces with depressions on one face, possibly originally designed to take a countersunk screw-head, although the depressions appear to be dished rather than flat-angled.

I’ve fitted the narrow ends of the tapered pieces into the other pieces’ depressions.

My work is a cludge because I didn’t have the right length of bolts for the lower attachment-points (next to the fork drop-outs), so I’ve used the 50 mm bolts I did have. If they were driven fully home without the spacers you can see on the right of this photo, the other end of the bolt would foul the brake-disk.

I could have used some 35 mm bolts I did have if I’d not fitted the piece that runs up and forwards from the drop-outs, going over the wheel. However, I think this piece prevents the fronts of the pannier-bearing trapezia from bending inwards and potentially fouling the wheel. Also, it’s a place for even more lights!

I’m slightly concerned that these bolts stick out enough to foul the backs of panniers. However, I don’t yet have any front panniers, so it’s not currently a problem. I see two options for shortening these bolts by 10 mm:

• using a hacksaw, which might damage the thread where it goes into the bike, and hence the threaded hole on the bike
• grovelling – does anyone have two 40 mm M5 bolts (preferably with heads that take 4 mm hex keys) I can blag, please? I have a small amount of M5 stuff and more M6 kit than I think I’ll ever use, if you want a swap.