Mica Cycles Rat Tail Rack

Minimalist rear rack with maximal carrying capacity.  The Mica Rat Tail Rack might be my new favorite rear rack.  I love (still do, it looks great) the Nitto R-10 and it's near relative the Simworks Burrito rack.  Ariel and I have put both thru their paces on bike packing adventures.  They're close to perfect.  However...

The Rat Tail Rack addresses a few short comings of the Nitto rack.  1.  Hardware.  The Nitto rack uses very nice but also proprietary hardware to secure the stays to the rack.  It works well, but if you lose a washer, it's game over.  2.  Ease of installation.  If you don't have to cut the stays on the R-10, you could argue that the R-10 is easier to install.  But you have to cut the stays.  That makes it about 2 times more involved than the Rat Tail.  3.  You can't mount stuff to the stays of the R-10.  You can mount cargo cages to the Rat Tail.  That means you can haul more water or gear.  

Downsides?  Only comes in black.  It's not a 'pretty rack' but I think it's actually nice looking in a basic no frills kinda way.  I've certainly seen worse looking racks.  

The Rat Tail Rack wants a stuff sack on top.  We recommend the Fifth Season Cache sack or ideally the Fifth Season Camel's Hump bag.  The Cache sack is shown in the pics below strapped to the side of the rack, and the Camel's Hump on top.  

Ideal for a 6-9" diameter stuff sack on the top.  A Cache sack is around 6", a Camel's Hump closer to 7.  With 4 cache sacks (two on fork), one Camel's Hump and one Fifth Season CataMount (on bars) bag you no longer need a frame bag for all but the longest and hardest trips.  That's plenty of space for a 5 days worth of food, tent, sleeping bag, 3 season gear, etc.  

Here's a bunch of tech details I stole from Mica's site.

Included:

• Rack with 3-pack mounts on vertical stays.
• 35mm seat post/seat tube clamp with shims for 27.2mm, 30.9mm, and 31.6mm.
  • The 35mm clamp size fits directly onto many frames, below the seat post (as pictured). Contact for other sizes.
• Seat stay mounting blocks.
• 10mm bolts for the bottle/accessory bosses
• Heavy duty zip ties for mounting seat stay blocks. (5/16" wide hose clamps will also work in the place of zip ties, and can be found at your local hardware store.)

Need to know:

• Top platform length: 17" / 425mm
• Max tire size: 3.1" / 80mm
• Weight: 410g (functional weight, includes mounting hardware)
  
• Weight capacity: 10kg / 22lbs    (2kg per 3-pack cargo mount)
  
• Colour: matte black
• Material: 4130 chromoly steel tubing, 6061 T6 aluminum seat post clamp, stainless clamps, nylon seat stay mounting blocks, stainless screws throughout.
• Check with frame manufacturer before using on carbon or ultralight race frames
• One size fits most.
  
• Not compatible with full-suspension bikes.