Runts opinion of the best bike rakes on the market
Two inch reciever is the only way to go. These are in my opinion the best racks on the market in order:
1.
http://www.northshoreracks.com/ The North Shore 4 bike rack allows the maximum amount of ground clearance :victory::victory: of any rack on the market and also accommodates children’s bike frame odd ball sizes the best. It’s easy to load, strong and very well made and designed. It will even tilt back to access a tail gate etc. This rack also will not block the brake and turn signal lights on small vehicles or trailers like most do. North Shore Racks is a small family business with excellent customer service .
2.
http://www.yakima.com/racks/bike-racks/product/8002433/holdup-(2-receivers-only).aspx The Yakima Holdup 2” is a awesome rack. Fits most kids bikes due to it holds onto the tires (not sure on 12” tire size bikes though….generally you need to have the restraint bar hold onto the seat). It is expandable to a four bike set up as an add on. It is very easy to set bikes up and holds them very securely. Down side is its freaking expensive. Its around $ 600.00 for the two bike set up alone and another $ 500.00 for the addition of the two extra bike carrier :yikes:.
Now one thing to keep in mind is what you will carry on your trailer and over hang. Due to the over hang on the boat over the back of my trailer I might not be able to use the North Shore Rack.
3.
http://www.swagmanbikeracks.com/shopnew/product.php?productid=16164&cat=24&page=1 The Swagman 4 bike carrier is the one in the pic above. It’s a piece of s#%t
. Do not buy it unless you have a lot of patience and low end bikes that you won’t stress out as much about when traveling rough roads. However its still way better than 80 % of the two prong style racks out there.
You can easily get the much cheaper two prong style fork type racks if you’re running standard style frames with full size bikes. The problem lies with the small kid sized framed bikes . I can not say enough about the North Shore rack. I live in British Columbia which is arguably the meca. of mountain biking in North America. My friends and I have tried, used, abused and broken almost all types of racks. We do primarily down hill and free riding (extreme stunts, slope style tricks etc.)which requires burly (read heavy) full suspension mtn bikes :bike_rider:. We travel up washed out mountain roads at high speeds :smiley_drive: for the road conditions in order to get in as many runs as possible and the first two racks have held up perfectly. In conclusion the North Shore rack is by far the best :wings:. The Yakima is very nice and quite refined but takes away a lot of departure angle and is extremely expensive
. The Swagman seems like the best value until you use it and quickly realize why it’s so much cheaper. Hope this helps you out.
