- Joined
- May 19, 2018
- Posts
- 759
^^^ brake light thing is intriguing to me as well.
Thanks for the info. I need it for 4 bikes. Would be hanging off of my Landrover LR4, so it should be plenty of vehicle for any of the discussed scenarios.
I have lifted trucks with heavy duty suspensions and I still buy bike racks based on weight - these beast racks that weigh a ton make no sense to me.
The North Shore 6 is only 67 lbs and by keeping the weight as tucked in to the truck as possible it minimizes the leverage arm. 4 bikes will approach 200 lbs, but you don’t really feel it - driving I forget the rack is back there.
My 2 bike Kuat is 37 lbs. Same logic on weight.
The biggest problem I have with the 1Up racks is they are fugly. I wouldn’t leave one of those on my rig because they look like you cut up a ladder and left it on the back of your truck.
@nay looks like you have an extra tall garage door?
I wanted to check, as after some quick measurements it's not looking like I'll be able to fit our second-gen Sequoia with bikes on it in our garage at home or in the mountains. Yet another complexity to this messy rack business.
these for 4 bikes is like the old flat ski racks were for 6 skis, they both were designed for the gear a decade prior. The 4 bike hanging racks were designged for narrower handlebars and traditional triagle frames. With the advent of tray racks and the newer hanging ones like @nay's they are a design that's time has passed. In most cases, I cannot recommend then in good conscience to someone and whie I will let someone buy one, I will not sell them it.Here's a review of my Thule Apex Swing 4:
View attachment 106013
Good fun loading four bikes.
The swing works nicely and it's held up fairly well over 8 years. I feel like I'm in the stone ages compared to the convenience of loading bikes on the newer rack designs. Given the other options available, I'm not sure why someone would go with a rack of this design these days.
My Kuat 4 bike is about 5 years old. Pretty much lives on the back of the car because it is so heavy. It's just not worth it to take it off and put it back on. It's been good, but I think I'd prefer OneUp. The staggered arrangement of the trays should mean less interference between bars and saddles. With the Kuat you need to put them on just so and sometimes some padding is needed. The Kuat has not weathered exceptionally well. One ratchet arm has stopped ratcheting which has rendered it a 3 bike rack, and all of the lock cores have frozen. The lock cables were always a little bit too short anyway.