This Bradenton Company Holds Your Bike on the Car With Suction Cups. Yes, Really.

The first time you see a bike riding on the roof of a car with no rack rails, just a few round black cups stuck to the glass, your brain does a little double take. Then you notice the car is doing 70 on I-75 and the bike is doing just fine.

Made Here week three goes to the reason that works. SeaSucker designs and builds vacuum-mount racks and accessories, and per their about page, every product and its parts are made in house, "under our roof," in Bradenton.

It started on a boat

SeaSucker has been family owned and operated since 2005, and it didn't start with bikes. The first products were marine accessories, mounts that stuck to a boat with vacuum cups instead of screws, so nobody had to drill holes in a nice hull. In 2009, as the company tells it, somebody realized those same mounts could hold a bike rack. Once they were putting bikes on cars (and, in their words, "racing them around the track at 140 mph"), surfboard, paddleboard and kayak racks were the obvious next step.

Founder Chuck Casagrande, per the site, has invented "well over 200 different products." The staff is described as offshore anglers, former pro cyclists, paddleboarders, snowboarders, musicians and artists. That explains a catalog that goes from bike racks to fillet tables to a hook for your Christmas wreath.

It also explains the cycling cred. SeaSucker says it has been the official rack supplier for the UCI, cycling's world governing body, since 2017. A rack built in Bradenton has been holding bikes at world championships in Europe. That's a fun thing to know the next time you're stuck behind one on Cortez Road.

The bike racks

The Talon ($299 on their page) is their best-selling one-bike rack. Three vacuum mounts, each rated at 210 pounds of pull, attach to your roof, trunk or rear glass in seconds, with no roof rails or tools. The page says it's small enough to pack in a bike bag or a carry-on, which is the most "I take my bike on vacation" sentence I've ever read.

The Mini Bomber ($499) carries two bikes on four 6-inch vacuum mounts. It's built with e-bike riders in mind, and properly mounted on a roof it can handle bikes weighing 100-plus pounds, per their page.

The Bomber ($599) is the family-of-three version: three bikes on five 6-inch mounts, roof, trunk or back glass. On all three, the HUSKE plugs that match your bike's front hub are sold separately, so check the fit before you check out. Their bike rack collection has the full lineup.

The boat stuff

This is where it gets very Manatee County.

The 2-Cup Holder, Vertical Mount ($75) holds two cans, bottles or wine glasses, and their page suggests the side of a bait tank, the side of your car at a tailgate, or "the outside of your boat at the sandbar." They know exactly who they're talking to.

The Universal Fillet Table ($249) gives you an 11-by-17-inch cutting surface held on by three vacuum mounts, with an adjustable bracket for different heights. No drilling into the boat to clean your snook (in season, legally, of course).

The Kayak Rack ($399) puts a kayak on your roof with four 6-inch mounts, coated steel J-hooks and compression buckles, and no roof rails or permanent hardware. If your car never came with rails, this is the workaround.

And one for the holidays

My favorite surprise in the catalog is the Wreath Hanger ($55). It's a 4.5-inch vacuum cup rated for 120 pounds of direct pull, with an orange band that tells you when it needs a quick repump. No nails, no adhesive, no over-the-door hook scratching the paint. A company that invented a way to keep a bike on a car at highway speed also solved the wreath. That's range.

Why it matters here

Plenty of gear gets designed somewhere and built somewhere else. SeaSucker's site is clear that it's made in the USA and engineered and built in Bradenton, and that nothing leaves the warehouse until it meets their standards. Every rack and rod holder on that site is a local job and a local idea that ended up on cars and boats around the world.

Need help with the boat itself? Gigly has local boat pros. Last week's Made Here was the Bradenton shop making boat shade poles that fold in half, which pairs nicely with a cup holder stuck to the hull. And if you're planning the rest of the week, here's everything happening around town.

Somebody in Bradenton figured out how to make a suction cup strong enough to carry a bike. I'll never look at the ones on my shower caddy the same way again.

— Sandy