So I have been using the Blackburn Metro Rack for a while now on my commuter. I have been using carrying my Ortlieb Office Bag on it daily, then I used it on the DC to PGH ride with two ortliebs on it and also to run errands and get grocery’s with grocery panniers.
Back in college I had a Bianchi Touring bike set up for cross that I commuted on daily. The whole time I had it, it had a Jandd Standard Rack on it. In my effort to make that bike again I picked up a new Jandd Standard Rack. Also the metro rack had been getting a lot of play in it when loaded up with groceries. I think the metro rack was rated to 20pds, where this one is 40.
It is a bit bigger than the Blackburn. A bit longer and a bit wider. It has wider rails/tubes than the metro as well. And more importantly it has wider spaced supports which makes the rack more stable and keeps your panniers from bouncing around, not a problem with the ortliebs, but the grocery panniers are more stable this way.
Just a note, the rack hardware came in this little bag, I will totally reuse this bag.
Here you go, on the bike, the rack is super sturdy and it lets you move the panniers back further. The blackburn rack would not allow you to mount the panniers towards the rear of the rack because of the way the support tubing was welded on.
This is the old bike from college that I spoke about earlier. Oddly enough this has no rack on it… I think I had just taken it off for a cross race I did that weekend.