The Best Suction Cup Bike Rack Brands (and Brands to Avoid)
Do you want your bikes and car to stay scratch-free when attaching them to one another? If yes, then make sure to invest in products from reputable brands. They have designed and tested their tailgate pads to do exactly that and offer valuable quality-of-life features on top.
While copycats do non of that. There are countless no-name and copycat brands out there copying from Seasuckers or Kupper mounts and putting their own branding on there. Especially for this kind of vacuum-powered mount, make sure to stick to reputable brands with great customer service.
In this short article only high-quality, established, and trustworthy brands are listed.
For a list of all the best bike rack brands, regardless of rack type, check out this article.
Here are the only two best and most reliable brands I recommend for suction mounted bike racks:
Kupper Mounts
… is the new kid on the block of suction technology mounts. It was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2018.
They have been successfully focusing on one product only: their vacuum-powered “KupperMount”.
With their brainpower behind their design, they managed to stomp out some unique selling points. It is regarded as one of the easiest to mount, even for a suction mount. Also, because of the small size, it is also easy to handle and stow away when not in use – for example right in your trunk.
SeaSucker
… is the clear juggernaut of the suction cup bike rack manufacturers. They have been making suction mounts since 2005 – based in Florida, USA.
SeaSuckers is a family-owned and operated designer and manufacturer of vacuum-powered car racks, marine accessories, and mounts for small electronics. Their products are made in the USA. All products are made in-house, under one roof.
The first designs of the bike rack began in 2009 and soon were sold worldwide. Somewhere in between, there was rigorous testing going on for such a pioneer product. “Vacuuming” expensive bikes to the roof of a moving car is not exactly inspiring trust, so they took safety extra seriously and went racing them around the track at 140 mph.
You may have seen the SeaSucker branding on 9-Bike Team Racks on TV before. They have been the official rack supplier for the UCI, cycling’s largest governing body.
Counterfeit Brands & Copycats of Suction Mounts
Sticking your expensive toys to a (mostly) even more expensive car by the power of air (or lack thereof) feels like a risky endeavor. Sometimes there is just no other way between all other bike rack types to transport a bike. In any case, an uneasy feeling comes with a suction-type mount. For the right reasons. From looking at it, there is no real way to assess the reliability before you push on the gas pedal and pray.
It doesn’t have to resort to praying. Just avoid low-quality counterfeit or copycat products.
Granted, they are not easy to spot and often look very similar to the real, high-quality, tested thing. Which is, of course, the point of counterfeiting. Even more so when the less effective knock-offs cost just as much as the real deal product.
There are many other branded suction mounts that can be found on various Ecommerce sites. Often on eCommerce Shops which simply put their own branding on.
Whatever branding can be found on there, they have some things in common: questionable design, missing research & development and lacking manufacturing quality. Clearly lacking in the most important aspects of a vacuum mount: load capacity and maximum driving speed. Which is an indication of the performance and reliability of the product.
As an example, RockBros has a history of unscrupulous copycat products
With that in mind, here is a list of branded suction mounts to avoid:
- ECCPP
- Golden Harbor
- IMT
- Longwheel
- Oligane
- Rassine
- Rockbros
- SUMO
- TREE FROG
- Velihome
- ZUOS
