I designed this rack for a bikepacking trip called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride. I also designed a gravel bike.

Simply put, this is a platform to hold a bag. The design choices made were in pursuit of a lightweight, simple, manufacturable, and durable product. By using chain masterlinks as the hinge, I will already be carrying spare parts and it simplified the design. By using a flexture to clamp the carbon tubes, I eliminate and additional hardware needed to secure the tubes. By using M3 bolts throughout the design, the whole product only requires one allen wrench, and a single spare bolt will work in any of the positions.

However, there are still improvments I would make in the next version. My first improvement would be to reduce weight. While this is already very light, it has a FOS of 16 and so it can easily be made lighter. I would also switch the hardware to M4 or M5 to increase the max torque rating on the bolts. Finally, I would tweak the geometry a little bit to accomodate larger bags and/or a lower CG.