Lane CETMA has been making bicycle utility racks for almost a decade now. His latest rack design innovation is his best yet! The racks are designed to make light work of carrying huge loads on a bicycle. Over the years he has innovated on his original design, increasing the rails, adding a fence, changing out the mounting hardware. 
I have admired these racks, and haven owned and happily used them. But to be honest I was not fully enammored with the older designs. In order to keep down costs, the strong but incredibly heavy WALD mounting struts were used. These struts were not amazing looking, and they weighed basically just as much as rack itself! As you can see in the below photos the new struts are much more beautiful.
This winter Lane started manufacturing struts himself. I cant stress how much of a big deal this is. The new struts make a pretty good utilitarian rack a very good all around utilitarian awesome rack. The struts lighten the weight of the rack considerably and are themselves very pretty. On top of all that the basic five rail rack retails for a very reasonable $100. You can purchase them in person at Box Dog Bikes or over the world wide web from the Cetma site.
Posted 06 Aug 2008 — by Andy
Category Products
Cetma 3-Rail:
Cetma racks are work racks. They do a job, the job of carrying things, and they do it well. We have carried the Cetma racks, on and off, since the store’s inception three years ago. Over the last couple of years the production side of Cetma has changed. People have started to catch on – ‘Hey, carrying things isnt just for messengers…. I can carry thing on my bike too!’ – and so the popularity of the front loading racks has increased.
Cetma 5-Rail w/ Fence:
Whereas a few years ago Lane was hammering these out in his garage in SF to supplement his income as a welder, he is now up in Oregan pumping out over a thousand (dont quote me on that) a year. The production quality has increased: the welds are tighter, the powder coating has a nicer finish. The options available are more refined: there are now 3, 5, 7 rail options and a “fence” option for the larger racks. The wait is a little longer: this dude is hustlin to get racks manufactured. But the bottom line is that these are still racks that do 1 job and they do it damb well: they carry stuff.
Cetma 7-Rail:
At this time we have three options in stock (and very limited quantities of each): the three rail, the five rail with a removable fence, and the seven rail. It seems to me that these are the most essential of the racks, as the five rail fence is removable and the seven rail with fence is just overkill. The Cetma racks will mount to any bicycle, albeit with relatively clunky WALD manufactured hardware, and will carry basically as much as you can physically put on there. The weight limit of the rack is greater than the weight limit of your front wheel and your individual ability to navigate the potholes of San Francisco or wherever you are riding without getting a pinch-flat. The racks are constructed in Oregon by Lane, who controls the whole production process from cutting and shaping the tubing, to welding and assembly. The racks are quite lovely and quite functional – two values we try to support at Box Dog – Thanks Lane!
Posted 10 Apr 2008 — by Andy
Category Products
I just placed an order for a 3 rail and a 5 rail front rack from C.E.T.M.A. racks, and we will be receiving a Paul front rack in the mail soon as well. Front-loading a bike distributes the weight of packages more efficiently than rear-loading does, and the for the majority of day to day in city riding is the recommended method.
Over the course of his life as a manufacturer, Lane from CETMA has changed the different models and different options to best suit his customers needs. Coincidentally a customer came in today for a flat fix sporting an early edition 8-rail rack. Pretty rad!
Posted 08 Apr 2008 — by Andy
Category Products
Another day, another sweet package. This time we received colored top tube pads for oversized/aluminum frames. The standard diameter of aluminum tubing is larger than that of steel tubing, so many people were experiencing problems trying to fit the smaller sized pads on their aluminum bicycles. Larger tubing, wider pads. We now have 10 of them in stock, each in its own color combination, each for $20. To the extent that R.E.Load will agree to continue to manufacture them, we will continue to stock them.
I also received a regularly sized Civilian in Purple diagonal pattern. Its beautiful/rad.
Last note: 3-rail CETMA rack is on its way. Will follow up with a post when it arrives (hopefully on Friday!)
