Amflo Carbon PL rear rack compatibility - safe to install?

[Bad Daddy]

I want to put a rear rack on my Amflo Carbon PL. I bought a nice one for suspension bikes but my bike dealer said don t do it . ?? I want to bring a 6 pack and extra clothes to the woods

 

[Greg Watts]

I want to put a rear rack on my Amflo Carbon PL. I bought a nice one for suspension bikes but my bike dealer said don t do it . ?? I want to bring a 6 pack and extra clothes to the woods

Welcome aboard, @Bad Daddy - and straight in with the important stuff: beer logistics. Respect.

Your dealer's not being a killjoy, mind. The issue is that the Amflow PR Carbon is a full-suspension carbon frame with 150mm of rear travel, and a standard seatpost- or seatstay-mounted rack has nowhere safe to bolt to. The rear triangle is moving through its travel constantly, so anything clamped across it either fouls the tyre as the suspension compresses, or puts load into a carbon stay that was never designed to carry it. Carbon doesn't dent as a warning like alloy does - it just cracks. That's the "don't do it."

A few ways to still get your six-pack to the woods: • Seatpost-clamp rack (the type that grips the post, not the frame) - these are made for full-sus bikes and don't touch the rear triangle. Just watch the weight limit; most are rated around 9 - 10kg, and check it clears the tyre at full droop. A dropper post complicates the mounting too, so measure carefully.

• A decent backpack or hip pack - honestly the path of least resistance for beer-and-a-spare-layer. No rattle, no clearance faff. • Frame/rear-triangle bags designed for full-sus bikes - smaller capacity, but zero risk to the frame.

The rack you already bought "for suspension bikes" might well be the seatpost-clamp type - if so, you may be fine. If it bolts to the stays or the axle, that's the one to keep off the Amflow. Tell us how it mounts (or post a photo) and we'll give you a straight yes/no.

Enjoy the evening ride - perfect weather for it.

 

[Ndanger]

Amflow now has the newly introduced bike rack system. Which validates the approach of adding a rear rack with out interfering with the seat post.

 

[Greg Watts]

Amflow now has the newly introduced bike rack system. Which validates the approach of adding a rear rack with out interfering with the seat post. 187968

Nice find, @Ndanger, but that's actually a different animal - the rack system you're pointing to is on the brand new Amflow TL Carbon, not the PL Carbon Bad Daddy's running. Worth flagging because the difference is exactly why it doesn't transfer.

The TL is Amflow's new "SUV e-bike" - a touring-focused platform with only 120/105mm travel, built from the ground up with a MIK-HD rear rack mount engineered into the frame, rated to 27kg. The rack isn't bolted onto an existing trail/enduro frame after the fact - the whole swingarm and seatstay were designed around carrying that load from day one, on a bike with a third of the suspension movement of the PL Carbon's 150mm rear end.

So if anything it reinforces my point rather than undoing it: Amflow only put a rack-rated rear end on the low-travel touring bike, not on the 150mm-travel PL. Different job, different engineering brief.

Even on the TL itself there's active debate (Pinkbike's comments on the launch article touched on it) about mounting a kids' seat to the swingarm adding unsprung mass and how the shock copes with that - so "designed for it" still comes with caveats, even on the bike that's actually built for it.

For Bad Daddy's PL Carbon, the seatpost-clamp rack or a rack-free bag setup is still the right call - the TL launch doesn't change that advice, it just shows what a proper rack-ready frame actually looks like.