Axiom Mk 3 Alu Journey Uni-Fit Cycle Rear Rack, Black

I bought this bike rack because of the angle at which it encounters my rear dropouts. The rear dropouts of my bike have a metal cuff around the top of them that prevents me from being able to use a bike rack that connects with arms coming down at a 90 degree angle. This bike rack's arms come in at more of a 20 degree angle, using the longer small connector arms it comes with.I have a 26" Dean mountain bike, which this rack fits perfectly on widest-angle option, of its longer pair of small connector arms. However, there is very little room, one inch, for a fender between this rack and my tire. So, I will take the recommendation of a bike specialist at REI, and build my own rear fender out of corrugated plastic-- the same plastic that political campaign signs are made out of. "Corruplast" as it is also known, has the same structure as corrugated cardboard, only with plastic, making it stronger and more durable.I will need to customize the fender out of corruplast to fit and attach directly to the bottom of this bike rack and attach with zipties or metal plumbing strapping. This will custom fender work out well though, as I will be make it into more than just a minimal fender. By essentially covering the buttom side of this rack, at the main platform and down each side down to the horizontal bars near the top. This will provide a bit of protection and improved cleanliness to the items mounted on my rack, in the case of riding through water/mud. I may even cover the entire inside of this rack cage with corruplast, as I will be touring a tropical and rainy place (Hawaii).What I really like about this rack is its strength and various mounting options. I will be carrying about 82 liters of gear (the volume of my two packs combined), and about a 40 liter tank of water strapped to this. Each backpack will sit strapped to a minimal PVC frame I've built. The PVC frame is mounted to the bike rack using metal plumber strapping. Check out this example: http://i143 dot photobucket dot com/albums/r154/n4zou/rearview.jpg(source: http://www dot bikeforums dot net/commuting/285046-bicycle-rack-backpack.html )So, given the amount of gear I have, which may be 60 pounds at the maximum, depending on how much water and food I will carry, I needed a strong and stable rack. This one is both strong and stable. It has become a natural extension of my bike, and feels very sturdily attached to the bike.Besides the main load bearing V-frame of this rack, I really like the horizontal cross bar, and the elbow shaped bar that extends off the bottom. These are super useful for my uses-- lots of customized loadout, versus saddlebags (panniers) which I am not using. I am going with, as I mentioned, a backpacking loadout, so as I said, I constructed my own PVC frames or carrying my backpacks on both sides of this rack. (about 14" wide and 25" high, with one crossbar right in the middle-- the crossbar and bottom bar of my PVC-backpack frames connect perfectly to this rack--- score!).Given my needs for a rack with lots of mounting options (i.e. for mounting backpacks, big water jugs, and other items) and capable of carrying heavily loads, this is an excellent rack and deserves 5 stars based on my needs.

This is a nice sturdy rack. However, it wasn't quite as easy to install as I had hoped. I installed on a Trek Verve+ e-bike that had factory installed fenders. I couldn't really swap or remove the rear fender because there is a built in taillight powered by the main battery. But I did have to use the same mounting eyelets for the fender and the rack to make the attachment at the rear part of the rack. And I wasn't able to get two mounting holes to line up on the multi-point bracket. So I'm a little concerned about that and might continue to fiddle to see if I can get that changed and get two bolts in per side rather than the one. The extension bars had to be fully extended, with the rubber caps removed, to reach the seatstay eyelets. And I did have to get some spare stainless steel screws to make that attachment. Ix am hoping the attachments I was able to make turn out to be strong enough to not fail under a load. I likely won't try to load to the stated 110 lb capacity. I just want to be able to carry a heavy chain lock with me so I can lock up the bike at the library or the post office in town while I am inside.

I have the Axiom Journey rack on my Kona Dew Plus, but I more recently bought a Motobecane 450HT from Bikesdirect and the disc brakes interfere with the Axiom Journey. If your bike can take the Axiom Journey, it is the best rack on earth. This rack (Uni-Fit MK3) comes close, but the weight rating is lower and it's heavier.I saw that another reviewer before me said "this needs more clearance for 29er bikes". My bike has 26" wheels, and I set the rack to the 26" holes (the mounting feet have different "heights", if you will). Set for 26", there was not enough clearance...I don't know what the point of those holes are. Anyway, I set the holes to the 29" setting on my 26" bike with 2.1" tires and now there is plenty of room for fenders. But if I had a 29" bike with 2.1" tires...I'm not sure this rack would have enough clearance.I set it to the longer feet to clear my disc brakes, and this is great for extra heel clearance. My really big Ortlieb Backrollers don't interfere at all and they aren't set further back or anything.The "feet" part are made of steel, they are nice and heavy and STRONG. I hope they don't rust, the paint should be good enough but this is going on my winter commuter and the roads are salted here, so I'm hopeful the paint holds out for a few seasons.

The rack is well built and light. The issue that it is marketed as fitting a 29r with skewer mounts. On my MTB the rack would need to be about 2 in larger to closely clear the tire. I don't see how they say it would work on a 29r, it is not even close. It could, but it would need an additional adapter neither of the two could be modified to work.

Dude, this bike rack is amazing. Probably the only one that'll fit my surly disc straggler -- i had another one i had to return that did technically fit the discs, but then it was too short so the tires rubbed up top.This thing is sturdy as hell, those arms are fully rotatable so you can fit it anywhere on the frame, and probably most useful to the general public is that no matter how short your chainstay is, you can get this thing far enough back that your heels won't clip your panniers. I'm not even using the longest arm and have like 4 inches between my heel and bags.Great rack, OH, and god damn the price is right. I was thinking i was going to have to drop like $180 on one...