Kettler Bicycle Accessory: Detachable Rear Mounted Metal Wire Bike Basket with Carrying Handle

I'm a student, and I'm currently living in Los Angeles without a car. For those of you not familiar with LA's car culture and sorely lacking pubic transportation system, you'll have to just take my word for the fact that many think I'm crazy. My bike is the only thing that makes living this way at all reasonable, and this bike basket makes my experience shopping by bike a breeze. The basket pops on and off the bike rack easily, but stays firmly on for all of my 6 mile ride home from campus, even when it's full of heavy groceries. It also doubles as a shopping basket, which I love for two reasons: 1) I rarely remember to carry re-usable shopping bags, but lots of places give points/discounts for not using their bags, and with this basket I usually don't have to. 2) It keeps me aware while I'm in the store of how much space I have. Yes, I can pack the basket on the bike much tighter than is reasonable to do in the store while shopping, but it's a good reminder. I have had one problem with the basket: it attaches to your rack with a spring-loaded mechanism on bottom, and contacts the basket with 4 screw-on rubber stoppers. I had a minor accident on my bike (swerved suddenly to avoid being hit by a car, hit the sidewalk). The basket popped off partially, but I hurriedly put it back on and headed home. I later noticed that one of the stoppers was missing, along with the corresponding spring. In the past, I had noticed that with abuse the stoppers occasionally twisted out of the right orientation, and apparently the fall was just enough to pop off one that had been loosened. Notably, I was still able to use the basket in this condition, but it was less stable. I was bummed and considered replacing it, but first I gave emailing the company a shot. Within a few days, I had two spare stoppers and springs at my apartment, FREE OF CHARGE. In summary, I would definitely recommend this product. That said, remember that between popping the basket on and off, and dealing with the weight, the stoppers take a lot of abuse. I would recommend checking them now and then to make sure they aren't coming off or twisting out of the proper position. Before I actually lost a stopper, I never looked closely enough to realize that the stoppers screw on, and can be tightened if they loosen/shift. Honestly, I don't find that to be much of an inconvenience to deal with in exchange for the convenience of removability. [Side note: I use this basket in combination with Sunlite Bicycle Bungie Cargo Net, Black . While I would never use it to strap something really heavy to my bike, as the cords are thinner than your average bungie, it is fantastic for keeping groceries firmly in the basket, and for strapping my backpack to the rack when I'm not using the basket. If you're someone who plans to shop by bike on a regular basis, I highly recommend this option. Panniers also have their advantages, but from what I've seen, the high quality ones are out of my price range, and you also really can't leave the nice ones on the bike and unattended--they WILL get stolen. This basket is removable, and so in theory has the same problem, but this isn't obvious without a bit of inspection. And honestly, at under $30, I'd rather lose this basket than a fancy set of panniers.]

The basket is great for generic bike racks (using it on the stock rack of a Specialized Vienna Deluxe 3). It fits quite securely although I do use bungee cords with it just for extra piece of mind. I do wish they would add some sort of clasp to the mounting brackets just to be sure they don't come apart going over a bump (not that it has happened). As it is the basket is very quick and easy to install and remove on a rear rack. Also I like that it uses rubber mounting feet so it doesn't scratch the rack. I do have complaints which kept me from giving it 5 stars. First it came in a packaging box that had no damage to it. The basket was padded in the box. But the basket was slightly deformed. Nothing major, but the basket is made of very thin meshing that is quite easy to bend. The dents and oddities were very easy to bend back. The handle is nice, especially for trips to the grocery store, but it comes off extremely easily. The first time I went to use the handle, it came off. All that it needs is an extra couple of centimeters in length and this wouldn't happen. I purchased a bungee cargo net to put over the top to keep things in. Unfortunately the holes in the meshing are too small to put the bungee hooks into. You can still mount the hooks to the basket's handle area and stretch the netting around the edges, so it works, but not as well as if I could put the hooks into the meshing itself. I am happy with the product but can't help but think that a little more thought, and even an extra pound in weight (to make it a bit tougher), wouldn't be a bad thing. I would gladly buy a basket that mounts to generic racks securely, isn't so fragile and had a handle that would stay put. Unfortunately, such a basket doesn't exist from my internet searches. This is best I could find.

I only used this a couple of times a week, never carrying more than 10 lbs and the bottom part that attaches itself to the rack broke. The basket itself remains in great condition. I can re-attach it as a semi-permanent fixture but would love to figure out how to fix it bringing it back to its original super quick attachment/detachment form. Great idea, nice looking but unfortunately has issues with quality and/or design of the attachment unit.

Have two bikes with two different racks. Couldn't get this thing to fit on either one. Returned it and got a pannier instead. Seemed like a nice basket if you can get it to work. But good luck getting it to work.