The Mule Rack: A Rack Eight Years in the Making

Back in 2016, I started experimenting with the idea of using sheet metal in a cargo rack. At the time, I was working at Salsa Cycles and had just wrapped development on the Anything Cage V2 and the Anything Cradle. I’d designed tubular racks before—they’re great for a lot of things—but for off-road use, I found I wanted more from them.

Most tubular racks lock you into a specific setup—usually panniers or nothing. That’s ok for commuting, but in bikepacking, gear accessibility can change. Sometimes you want your rain gear easily accessible other times its bulky food items that you just picked up.  

Strap-on panniers like the Freewheel Mission Hermosa UL or San Util Mini Panniers helped solve the issue of hard-mount panniers breaking racks or vice versa. These bags helped prevent rack failure but they didn’t add versatility to the rack itself.  

Then there’s the dreaded gear sag—that moment your gear shifts mid-ride and gets sucked into your spokes. Tubular racks often have too few lash points on the deck or don’t have them where you need them. You’ve got a stable load… but no way to strap it confidently.

I wanted a rack that could run strap-style panniers or carry drybags, water bottles, cages, food bags—whatever the trip required—without worrying about sag or access. It had to be versatile, stable, and modular.

The First “Cheese Grater”

In 2016, I designed a prototype using laser-cut sheet metal and a few redneck-engineered 2x4 bending jigs. It looked like a giant cheese grater, but it worked. The concept was valid! Unfortunately, life didn’t give me much room to explore it further at the time—but the idea always stuck with me.

Fast forward to 2024. I was chatting with my friend Brett about future adventures. He mentioned his upcoming Wild Bunch Tour and how brutal the terrain would be. He didn’t want to run a seat bag—he wanted a real rack and panniers. But he’d broken his fair share of racks and was wondering if I had any ideas.  That old “cheese grater” concept rose like a phoenix from the ashes and I knew it needed to exist.  

Brett was curious about the design and the use of sheet metal.  I explain sheet metal can get a bad wrap as “cheap” or “simple” but it's really an amazing manufacturing process when used properly.  Sheet metal built the aircraft that defined the jet age. Lightweight, strong, and reliable—sheet aluminum has been flying across continents since the 1940s.  I explained a few key advantages to Brett that a sheet metal rack would have:

• No welds = fewer fatigue-prone failure points.
• No swaging = less stress concentration.
• 5052 aluminum sheet can be cold-worked (laser cut and bent) without strength loss.
  
• Infinite strap points and slots can be built into the design to give amazing versatility
  
• I could take advantage of the process and match a rack body with stronger, thicker “feet” where that strength is needed

Brett was in. I spent hours designing, modeling, and running hundreds of FEA simulations. But anyone who’s hauled gear knows: no matter how many simulations you run, real-world use is different. Bikepacking is incredibly dynamic—especially with uneven loading.

Real Testing on the Wild Bunch Tour

I was able to join Brett and Diana on the Wild Bunch Tour.  Brett and Diana had already pushed the racks hard by the time they made it to the Kokopelli in Utah but I saw Diana bend the rack when she took 12 liters of water down infamously rough terrain on one side of the rack.  I fully expected something to happen on the trip but seeing it in real time was impressive.  The pannier was loose the water was like a bowling ball on a tether.  Watching the Mule rack flex and shift with every hard drop was a gift. I saw exactly where the design needed improvement. She finished the ride (with a field-repair reinforcement), and I came home excited to make V2 even better.(P(dkdkd

(Photo is post reinforcement and some water moved to top)

Baja Divide and V2 Refinement

V2 got hundreds more FEA tests and some key structural updates. Once again, Brett and Diana hit the trail—this time tackling thousands of miles on the Baja Divide, one of the roughest long-distance rides in North America.

A few weeks in, Brett called me:  “I’ve seen at least five broken racks down here. No issues with the Mule Rack though.”  We were close. But not done.  Even though V2 held up incredibly well, I saw room to make it lighter, stronger, and easier to use with strap-style panniers.  I added a few more lash points, refined the mounting details, and ran (you guessed it) hundreds more simulations.

Production-Ready at Last

Finally, the production version of the Mule Rack was ready.  It’s the result of several versions of prototypes, thousands of real-world trail miles, countless late-night design tweaks and simulations.  It’s a rack built to solve real bikepacking problems—not just “commute to work” problems. Whether you’re riding singletrack deep in the desert or the Tour Divide, the Mule Rack is ready.