I bought this rack to support transporting expensive bikes on family vacations. Knowing that a vacation is ruined if the rack breaks cost was not a factor in decision. That said this rack is amazing! Fast to load, easy to use, sturdy, looks great, and most important, securely hold the prized bikes you love. In 5 months we've driven from Wisconsin to Michigan 4x, Colorado 1x, & Florida 2x. Never an issue or concern. It's a heavy rack to lift by yourself, but that helps with solid feel/stability. I must say that it looks better in person than online. I am much happier than I thought I would be with the look/quality. Other racks are masses of plastic and this has a more purposeful thought through appearance. I also like the receiver tensioner to take out the wiggle caused by tolerances in truck receivers. Would buy again in a heartbeat!!!
I love how fast it is to get one or two bikes loaded in and out of this rack. The peace of mind after loading them up is great too. I don't have to worry about bike sway or the stability of the rack when I'm driving.
A couple of things that could be better: I don't like how the release lever is next to the inside bike. When you have more than one bike racked up it becomes more difficult to raise and lower the rack (this becomes more difficult with the Kuat bike extensions). Another problem that I have is with the supplied bike lock. It isn't long enough to wrap around a wheel, frame, and the wheel of the neighboring bike. So you can only lock up the frame and one wheel from each bike. I also presume that a quick pinch with bolt cutters will free up these bikes pretty quickly if a thief decides to try it out.
I snagged this to be a lighter duty daily driver kind of pad for my truck, something not as in your face as the typical full pad. It fully delivers in that- looks good, is low profile, pretty easy to take on and off as needed. It's got padding across the top of the 'gate to protect your downtube where needed, and is a thin (but high quality) material elsewhere. Soft liner on the paint-facing side is quality, and the only problem I've run into so far is friends who don't know how to use velcro straps and ripped one- a little more robust strap would have been nice, but intelligent riding buddies might also fix that. Overall, highly recommend!
