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Jun 04, 2025

The 7 Best Bike Racks & Carriers for Cars and Trucks of 2025 | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Eric C. Evarts When you need to carry your bike by car, you want to do it as easily and securely as possible. That’s why we recommend the Küat Sherpa 2.0 as the best option for carrying two

By Eric C. Evarts

When you need to carry your bike by car, you want to do it as easily and securely as possible. That’s why we recommend the Küat Sherpa 2.0 as the best option for carrying two bicycles, as long as your vehicle accommodates a hitch receiver. After researching some 220 bike racks and testing more than 75, we’ve found that the Küat Sherpa 2.0 offers the best combination of solid construction, ease of use, light weight, and a reasonable price.

However, we also have picks for cyclists with other needs or constraints. These include the less expensive Küat Beta hanging hitch rack, the ebike-friendly Thule Epos, the Saris Bones EX 3-Bike trunk rack, the Saris SuperClamp EX 4-Bike tray rack, the Yakima HighRoad roof rack, and the Inno Velo Gripper pickup-bed carrier.

Of the tray-style hitch racks we tested, this is one of the easiest to install and use. It’s lightweight, holds one or two bikes securely, and lets you access your vehicle even when the rack is loaded.

This hanging-style, two-bike hitch rack costs less than our top pick. It’s light and easy to install, and it folds flat for storage. But it’s not as easy to use overall.

This two-bike rack is great for carrying bikes weighing up to 75 pounds. It’s easy to install and load bikes onto, but it’s far more expensive than our top pick.

This versatile trunk rack offers sturdy construction and light weight at an affordable price. You have to lift your bike up higher to load it than with our top pick.

This tray-style hitch rack is lighter than most similar models, easy to use, and reasonably priced for a four-bike rack. You’ll need a 2-inch hitch receiver, though.

This one-bike roof rack is simple to install, allows easy access to your car, and holds a bike securely, with no frame contact. It’s harder to load bikes onto any roof rack, including this one, than onto our other picks.

Our choice for carrying one bike in the bed of a pickup, this well-priced carrier has a simple design and is very portable.

Your car might sit too low to fit a hitch mount, or your bike might be too heavy to lift onto a roof rack. You’ll need options!

Our chart shows the pros and cons of the different kinds of racks: tray hitch, hanging hitch, trunk, roof, and truck bed.

We surveyed the members of more than 20 bike clubs across the country to see what they wanted (and didn’t want) in a bike rack.

We took each of the 75-plus racks we tested on the road — braving twisty lanes, high-speed highways, and rack-rattling potholes.

Of the tray-style hitch racks we tested, this is one of the easiest to install and use. It’s lightweight, holds one or two bikes securely, and lets you access your vehicle even when the rack is loaded.

In performance and price, the Sherpa 2.0 stands out. Less effort is needed to mount this lightweight two-bike model on your car and to stow it away than with many other tray racks.

This rack is also simpler than most to secure in the hitch, and its low height makes loading bikes easy. The Sherpa 2.0 holds most types of bikes (up to 40 pounds each). It tilts out of the way, even when fully loaded, letting you access your vehicle, and it folds up compactly.

This hanging-style, two-bike hitch rack costs less than our top pick. It’s light and easy to install, and it folds flat for storage. But it’s not as easy to use overall.

If you have budget or storage constraints, the two-bike, hanging-style Küat Beta is a good alternative to the Küat Sherpa 2.0. Because it’s a hanging rack, it isn’t as easy to load, and you have to unload your bikes to tilt the rack down.

But the Beta is solidly constructed and holds bikes securely. Weighing 18 pounds, it’s also one of the lightest hitch racks we’ve tested, so it’s easy to install. And unlike most hitch racks, the Beta folds completely flat, making it simple to store — hang it on a garage wall hook or stash it in a closet.

This two-bike rack is great for carrying bikes weighing up to 75 pounds. It’s easy to install and load bikes onto, but it’s far more expensive than our top pick.

Whether you need to transport heavier ebikes or you just want a rack that’s easy to load, the Thule Epos is hard to beat. This rack is expensive, but it can hold two bikes up to 75 pounds each (they shouldn’t exceed 140 pounds combined), and a foldable ramp (which costs extra) lets you roll bikes onto the rack instead of lifting them.

It’s lighter than competing models, and it folds up to the size of a large airline carry-on bag. The Epos is also quick to install. However, the Epos holds bikes by the frame, which some riders don’t prefer, and the clamps can be awkward to use.

This versatile trunk rack offers sturdy construction and light weight at an affordable price. You have to lift your bike up higher to load it than with our top pick.

The Saris Bones EX 3-Bike is solidly built yet lightweight, is easy to mount and to store, and can fit almost any car. Made of molded plastic, the Bones EX is easier to lift onto the back of a vehicle and strap on than its competitors.

It remained stable even at high speeds and with quick stops. The fully adjustable legs fit over even massive factory spoilers, and the whole contraption folds nearly flat for storage. As with all trunk racks, loading your bike requires lifting it higher than you’d have to with a trunk rack. The EX also comes in a two-bike version.

This tray-style hitch rack is lighter than most similar models, easy to use, and reasonably priced for a four-bike rack. You’ll need a 2-inch hitch receiver, though.

If you need to carry four bikes, we recommend the Saris SuperClamp EX 4-Bike. The SuperClamp EX is one of the lightest four-bike tray-style hitch racks available, and it can accommodate two bikes weighing up to 60 pounds each, plus two others up to 35 pounds each.

Using a handle at the rear, you can easily fold up the rack when it’s empty, or tilt it down when it’s loaded, to access the vehicle. This rack isn’t as simple to mount as the Küat Sherpa 2.0, and like all other four-bike racks, it’s available only for 2-inch hitch receivers.

This one-bike roof rack is simple to install, allows easy access to your car, and holds a bike securely, with no frame contact. It’s harder to load bikes onto any roof rack, including this one, than onto our other picks.

Although roof racks are more expensive than trunk racks, are harder to use than hitch racks, and can dramatically reduce your car’s fuel economy, they allow you unimpeded access to a vehicle, and they’re the only option for some car designs.

Of the roof racks we tested, the Yakima HighRoad was the easiest to work with, both when mounting it and loading a bike. It holds your bike solidly by the front wheel, which we like better than fork-mount designs because the rack doesn’t contact your bike’s frame. Your vehicle does need roof rails to mount the rack onto (this is true of all roof racks).

Our choice for carrying one bike in the bed of a pickup, this well-priced carrier has a simple design and is very portable.

Trunk racks won’t work on a pickup, and you may want to keep the hitch free for towing. The Inno Velo Gripper secures a bike to the side of a pickup truck’s bed.

This position keeps a bike out of the driver’s line of sight, something we didn’t find to be true with other pickup carriers we tested. The Velo Gripper’s clamps are also compact enough that you can toss them in a toolbox when they’re not in use.

The Velo Gripper is available in two versions: The RT201 for regular pickup-bed sides, and the RT202 for C-channel bed-rail systems.

Eric Evarts, a fervent cyclist since childhood, wrote the most recent edition of this guide. He’s a seasoned auto journalist who’s written for Cars.com, The Christian Science Monitor, U.S. News & World Report, AAA, Fortune magazine, and Green Car Reports.

Many types of bike racks exist, each with its own pros and cons. Finding one that’s right for you depends on your vehicle, bike(s), and budget. Here are the types we tested:

After testing scores of racks, we’ve determined that a tray-style hitch rack is the easiest to use and the most versatile, but the vehicle (or vehicles) and bike (or bikes) you own may limit your choices:

To understand the pros and cons of different types of racks, we talked with the experts at top bike and bike-rack shops across the country, including Rack Attack stores in Boston, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon; East Burke Sports in Vermont; Chile Pepper Bike Shop in Moab, Utah; Backcountry Bike & Ski in Palmer, Alaska; Roscoe Village Bikes in Chicago; and Ridgefield Bicycle Company in Connecticut. We also talked to experts at REI’s headquarters, and we surveyed more than 20 bike clubs across the country.

We expect all good bike racks to mount securely to your vehicle and hold your bikes tightly; here are the other things we look for:

For each rack, we went through the whole ownership experience. During assembly, we noted whether the necessary tools were included and how easy the instructions were to follow (often, not). We mounted each rack on one or more vehicles. We loaded bikes, noting how high we had to lift them and how easily they could be secured.

We drove along curvy, two-lane back roads, on highways, and over dirt roads, making frequent quick stops and sharp turns. When possible, we folded, tilted, or swung the rack to see how easily we could access a vehicle’s cargo area.

Our test vehicles included sedans, hatchbacks, SUVs, and pickup trucks. For hitch racks, we used vehicles with 2-inch receivers, and we tried each roof rack on four sets of crossbars, including the factory bars on our Toyota RAV4 as well as on a Thule AeroBlade Edge system and Yakima JetStream bars.

Of the tray-style hitch racks we tested, this is one of the easiest to install and use. It’s lightweight, holds one or two bikes securely, and lets you access your vehicle even when the rack is loaded.

As long as your vehicle has a trailer hitch, the Küat Sherpa 2.0 tray-style hitch rack is the best overall rack for transporting one or two bikes.

It’s light. Weighing less than 32 pounds, the all-aluminum Sherpa 2.0 is the lightest two-bike tray rack we tested (most others ranged from 45 pounds to 56 pounds), so it’s especially easy to install in the hitch receiver or to remove for storage.

It’s easy to install. After inserting a smooth, lockable pin through the receiver tube, you turn a knob to tighten the rack in the receiver hitch. This is a much quicker process than with most other hitch-mount racks, which make you crouch down to tighten — and tighten, and tighten — a nut on the receiver bolt under the car.

It’s also easy to use. The Sherpa 2.0 has one of the lowest lift heights — only 26.5 inches, compared with 29 inches or more for most other tray racks. Even with bikes loaded, it easily tilts down so you can open your vehicle’s rear hatch or trunk. When it’s not carrying bikes, the Sherpa 2.0 folds up and out of the way. To fold it back down, you just step on a foot release. The Sherpa 2.0 is available for both 1.25-inch and 2-inch tow hitches.

Each bike has plenty of room. The Sherpa 2.0 provides ample space between bikes (we measured 12 inches, compared with 8 to 10 inches for most other tray racks); this minimizes the chances of bikes damaging each other. And it holds bikes securely by the front wheel, with minimal side-to-side movement and no frame contact.

It locks to your bike. Like most of the tray racks we tested, it comes with locking systems for securing rack to vehicle and bikes to rack.

It’s reasonably easy to store and reasonably priced. When the Sherpa 2.0 is not on the vehicle, it stands on its own, without needing additional support. The rack’s price is about average among the two-bike tray racks we tested.

This hanging-style, two-bike hitch rack costs less than our top pick. It’s light and easy to install, and it folds flat for storage. But it’s not as easy to use overall.

If you live in the city or an apartment and have to street-park your car, but you want the advantages of a hitch rack, look no further than the Küat Beta.

It’s light, compact, and affordable. The Beta weighs only 18 pounds — it too is made of aluminum — and it’s easy to install and remove. When the rack is on your car but empty, its arms can fold down and out of the way. When it’s off the car, it folds down tiny enough to stash in a closet. The Beta also costs less than most other hitch racks.

It holds bikes securely, for a hanging-style hitch rack. As you do with the Sherpa 2.0, you insert a smooth pin and turn a knob to secure the Beta in the hitch receiver (a $30 hitch lock is optional). The Beta doesn’t hold bikes as solidly as the Sherpa 2.0 does — during our test-drives with the Beta, the bikes swung a little more on the rack’s arms — but they never came loose. And the straps securing the bikes were the easiest to use of the straps on any hanging-style hitch rack we tested: You set the bike in the cradle, pull the straps over the top tube, and cinch them down. Like the Sherpa 2.0, the Beta is available in 1.25- and 2-inch mount versions.

This two-bike rack is great for carrying bikes weighing up to 75 pounds. It’s easy to install and load bikes onto, but it’s far more expensive than our top pick.

If you need to carry electric or other heavy bikes — or you just want a tray-style hitch rack that’s a cinch to install and load a bike onto — the Thule Epos 2-Bike Foldable Hitch Platform Bike Rack may be worth checking out.

Each tray of the two-bike Thule Epos (which replaces the EasyFold XT 2, our former pick for ebikes) can carry a bike weighing up to 75 pounds. However, the rack’s total capacity is 140 pounds (so, that would mean one 75-pound bike and one 65-pound bike, for example). To help load them, you can buy a folding ramp ($100) for this aluminum rack that slots into the end of the platforms. (This rack’s predecessor, the Thule EasyFold XT 2, came with the ramp included.)

It’s easy to install and remove. At 38 pounds, the aluminum Epos is manageably light for a heavy-duty rack, and it folds up to the size of a large airline carry-on bag. (It even comes with wheels and a handle.) This makes getting the rack on and off the car relatively easy. This rack is simpler to secure than most: Just slide the rack into a 1.25- or 2-inch receiver, close a pinch arm into the receiver’s hole, turn the tension knob to cinch it down, and use a key to lock the knob.

It tilts away from your car when needed. To access a vehicle’s cargo area, you can step on a wide release lever at the rear and tilt the rack down — even when the rack is loaded with bikes. (This works well on most truck tailgates and on hatches that lift upward, but it may not provide enough clearance for side-opening rear doors to open.) When the Epos is empty, the sides fold up. Unlike other racks, it doesn’t fold flat against the back of the vehicle; it still extends rearward by its full length. The Epos has built-in reflectors and a brake light kit with a license-plate mount as an add-on — your vehicle will need a four-pin flat connector (a trailer light hookup) built in.

This versatile trunk rack offers sturdy construction and light weight at an affordable price. You have to lift your bike up higher to load it than with our top pick.

If your car can’t accommodate a trailer hitch, or you want something to move between vehicles, we recommend the Saris Bones EX rack, available in two- and three-bike versions. (Our former pick, the non-EX version — available in two- and three-bike models — remains a great rack, and it’s less expensive. It just won’t fit over the most extreme rear spoilers.)

It’s one of the lightest racks we tested. The rack’s arms (which hold the bikes) and legs (which brace against your car) are injection-molded plastic, which makes the rack lighter, at 11 pounds, than competitive aluminum racks we tested.

It’s stable. The Bones’s upper leg (or legs, in the three-bike version) rests on the trunk or hatch, and the other two sit on or against the car’s bumper. All the legs end in pivoting rubber feet — larger than those on other racks — that protect the car and provide serious grip.

It’s really easy to adjust. Thanks to the Bones rack’s innovative design, which relies on a central tube fitted with toothed and smooth sections, we were able to adjust the legs quickly. We got the rack onto the car in 4.5 minutes — less than half the time it took with some other trunk racks.

The straps that hold the rack to the car feed through the central tube, so you can place the anchors at the top, sides, and bottom of the car and pull on both sides at once for a tight, even fit. Other trunk racks required tightening each strap individually, which often resulted in a lopsided rack. With the Bones rack, we gave the straps a couple of good yanks and voilà — the rack was on straight and tight. The top legs have a significant bend, letting them clear most spoilers. The curve of the arms also spaces your bikes out, so they don’t knock into one another as you drive.

It stores small. Storing the rack itself is easy: The arms and legs collapse, making the rack pretty compact. If you want to leave the rack on the car, the arms fold down and out of the way.

This tray-style hitch rack is lighter than most similar models, easy to use, and reasonably priced for a four-bike rack. You’ll need a 2-inch hitch receiver, though.

If you need to carry four bikes, we recommend the Saris SuperClamp EX 4-Bike hitch rack, which provides a nice balance of features, ease of use, and price.

It secures your bikes by the tires. With clamps on the front and rear tires, the SuperClamp EX held our bikes securely, without contacting the frames.

It can carry heavy non-electric bikes. It can accommodate bikes up to 60 pounds each, in the two positions nearest to the car, and 35 pounds each, in the two positions farthest from the car. That’s enough capacity for most non-electric bikes, even larger steel ones.

It’s light for a four-bike tray. At 63 pounds, the steel-alloy SuperClamp is one of the lightest four-bike tray racks available, so it’s easier to get on and off of the vehicle than its competitors. It is still large, though, and we recommend recruiting a friend (or two or three!) to install and remove the rack.

It tilts for storage or accessing your cargo area. By pulling a handle at the rear, you can fold up the rack when it’s empty or tilt it down for access to a vehicle’s cargo area.

It has integrated bike and hitch locks. The SuperClamp has integrated cables for locking bikes to the rack, and it comes with a hitch lock for securing the rack to the vehicle. Cable locks aren’t as secure as chain or U locks, but they may be enough to deter an opportunistic thief.

This one-bike roof rack is simple to install, allows easy access to your car, and holds a bike securely, with no frame contact. It’s harder to load bikes onto any roof rack, including this one, than onto our other picks.

If you want to carry your bike on the roof of your vehicle, you’ll find no better way to do so than with the Yakima HighRoad.

It was the simplest to install of all the roof racks we tested. We found the HighRoad to be one of the quickest racks to mount to and remove from the vehicle. With other roof racks, you have to fiddle with brackets and Allen screws. But the HighRoad uses three rubber straps that slide under any type of crossbar. Flip a tab and adjust the tension, and the steel-alloy rack grips any type of roof rails firmly, so you don’t have to buy dedicated cross-bars from Yakima. That’s a big win. And it can fold flat onto the roof of your car when not in use.

It’s easy to load, and it doesn’t touch a bike’s frame. The HighRoad secures a bike using two hoops that clamp securely onto the front wheel (as shown in the GIF below), as well as a ratcheting strap that wraps around the rear rim.

It worked like a dream. During our test-drives, this setup held a variety of bikes rock-steady through bumps and swerves — more tightly than any other roof rack we tested, even including some fork-mount roof racks, which bike enthusiasts often consider to be the most secure. (Several other models left our bike wobbling left to right over bumps and around curves.)

It has some anti-theft features. The HighRoad has locking covers on the tensioning tabs, so thieves can’t remove the bike rack itself from the vehicle; some other models that use a similar latching system are not lockable. It also comes with integrated cables to lock the bikes to the rack, though again, we’d recommend adding U locks if leaving the bikes unattended on the rack.

Our choice for carrying one bike in the bed of a pickup, this well-priced carrier has a simple design and is very portable.

If you want to secure a bike in the bed of a pickup truck, we recommend the Inno Velo Gripper. There are two versions of the Velo Gripper: The original model, RT201, fits standard truck beds; the newer model, RT202, is designed for use with the C-channel bed-rail systems found in some Chevrolet, GMC, Toyota, and other pickups.

It’s affordable, simple to use, and unobtrusive. Of the pickup-bed carriers we’ve tested (none of which need to be bolted to the truck), this model provides the best balance of compactness, ease of use, and low price. Unlike some other carriers we tried, it doesn’t require you to remove the front wheel of a bike. It held our bike securely in the bed — and off to the side, where it didn’t interfere with our rear vision while we were driving.

It’s more secure than other carriers we tested. The Velo Gripper includes two clamps that attach securely to the side rail of a truck’s bed. The initial installation took a little longer than with other pickup racks we tried, because it took some measuring to get the grippers in the right place on the truck bed. But this is something you have to do only once, and this system is more secure than those of some other models. It takes less than a minute, on the other hand, to remove the bike and grippers.

If you want to transport an ebike and have limited strength or dexterity: Consider the Saris Door County. This tray rack incorporates an electric lift that lowers it to the ground for loading — you just roll the bikes onto it — and it can carry two bikes weighing up to 60 pounds each. The rack folds up from the sides, just as the Thule Epos does. It’s a little heavier, at 64 pounds, but it has wheels on the bottom and a carry handle positioned at the rack’s center of gravity. And the ratchet straps for the wheels and the frame tubes have lever mechanisms that you can cinch tight one notch at a time, with little effort. This rack retails for about $1,300, though, and it requires a seven-pin trailer electrical connector.

If you need to carry more than four bikes and have a 2-inch hitch receiver on your vehicle: Consider one of the vertical hanging racks from Velocirax. We tested the 412, which holds just four bikes, but Velocirax makes models that will carry up to seven bikes. The rack is easy to load: You lift the front wheel of each bike into one of the wheel hoops, press and heft the rack back to its vertical position, attach the wheel straps, and you’re ready to go. At 77 pounds just for the four-bike version, though, the rack is heavy; it takes full-body strength to maneuver it into or out of the hitch receiver on your vehicle. It’s also tall, rising above the roofline of most SUVs, even without bikes. The price is reasonable, especially for the larger versions (the four-bike version is $860, and the seven-bike version is $985), but if the most you’ll need to carry is four bikes, a tray rack is a better choice.

If you need a roof rack that can carry kids bikes or fat bikes: Consider the wheel-mount RockyMounts TomaHawk, which can accommodate smaller bikes (20 inches to 29 inches) and bikes with tires up to 5 inches thick. It didn’t hold our bikes as solidly as the Yakima HighRoad — on choppy roads, the bikes rocked. But if you have a car that can handle only a roof rack and you need to carry these particular bikes, it’s a good choice.

If you need a roof rack and have limited strength and/or concerns about fuel economy: We recommend the RockyMounts SwitchHitter. It offers the advantages of a fork-mount roof rack — less weight to lift up once you’ve removed the bike’s front wheel and a lower profile, for better aerodynamics. The SwitchHitter accepts thru-axle designs, and RockyMounts claims the rack fits all crossbar styles. Overall, however, it wasn’t as convenient to use as the Yakima HighRoad.

Loading, unloading, and tilting the Hollywood Racks Destination E-Bike Rack is tedious, involving many steps. It also requires more assembly than the Thule Epos.

A larger sibling of the Sherpa 2.0, the Küat NV 2.0 can carry four bikes with an add-on accessory (and has a nifty integrated workstand), but it’s 20 pounds heavier and more expensive.

The Küat NV Base 2.0 is essentially the same as the NV 2.0 but without the work stand. This makes it a little lighter and less expensive, but we still think the Sherpa 2.0 is a better buy.

The Thule T2 Pro XT was one of the heaviest non-motorized tray-style models we tested — and one of the most expensive. (It’s been replaced by the T2 Pro XTR, which has wheels to make moving the rack easier. It’s still heavy and pricey, however.)

In our bike-club survey, the 1UP USA 2" Heavy Duty Double was one of the highest-rated racks. But this rack wasn’t as easy to use as our picks: Releasing the clamping arm took two hands, and the release handle for tilting the rack is less accessible, too.

Mounting the RockyMounts SplitRail LS to a car is not as easy, requiring a wrench to cinch down a bolt. The rack is also unusually wide, which can make it unwieldy. The locks are also short and could barely reach the rear frame triangle of our bikes.

The Küat Transfer v2 2-Bike is a less expensive cousin of the Sherpa 2.0. The Transfer was heavier, wasn’t as easy to install on the vehicle, required more assembly, and didn’t come with locks. (In June 2024, Küat recalled several batches of the Transfer v2, citing a problem with the rack’s pivot cam that could result in bikes falling off the rack.)

While the four-bike SuperClamp EX was the best of the four-bike hitch-mount trays we tested, the thin mounting bar on its two-bike sibling allowed the rack to sway more than competitors.

The bolt that secured the rack in the hitch receiver of the Yakima HoldUp wouldn’t screw in because of stripped threads in the mounting bar. Although the HoldUp tilts down, the rear door of our Toyota 4Runner still hit the handlebars of the inside bike, preventing us from opening the door all the way.

At 68 pounds, the RockyMounts BackStage was heavier than our pick.

We used to suggest the Küat Transfer v2 1-Bike tray rack in our Other bike racks section for solo riders or for people who needed a tray rack rated for an RV or trailer. However, in June 2024, Küat recalled most versions of the Transfer v2, including the single-bike version.

The wheel hoops of the 1UP USA Quik Rack Single take two hands to operate, which makes it difficult to hold the bike while loading or unloading.

The release handle for tilting the RockyMounts MonoRail Solo presented a dealbreaker. At least three of our testers separately had the handle snap back and pinch their fingers against the rack’s frame as they used it — ouch!

Repositioning the arms of the Saris Bones Hitch 2-Bike was more cumbersome than with other hanging-hitch racks we tested, and while we were driving, our bikes wobbled more.

We had trouble getting four bikes onto the Yakima RidgeBack because of how close together they had to sit. The RidgeBack also lacks a built-in lock, which is something we expect to find in this price range.

The four-bike Thule Apex XT 4 doesn’t fold flat for storage.

The Yakima HangTight is a vertical-hanging hitch rack that comes in four- and six-bike versions. Instead of hanging the bikes by their front wheels, the HangTight holds them vertically by their handlebars. We found several problems with this approach: First, to lift the bike into the rack, you have to grab the bike by its underside, near the chain and front chainring(s). Worse, of the four bikes we used for testing, the HangTight couldn’t hold two of them at all — one bike due to its simple handlebar reflector and the other because the brake and shifter cables interfered with the straps needed to secure the bikes. To secure the rack in the hitch, you have to crawl underneath with tools to (endlessly) tighten the hitch bolt. And shortening the height of the vertical post (and raising it again to mount bikes) is a two-wrench process.

Of the swing-away hanging-style hitch racks we tested, the Thule Apex Swing 4 was the lightest (45 pounds), but tray-style hitch racks are still simpler and more stable.

The Yakima FullSwing is another swing-away design, but its usefulness is hampered by its weight (it’s 17 pounds heavier than the Thule). We had difficulty lining it up into the hitch receiver while supporting its weight.

Adjusting the Thule Passage 2 requires fiddling with spring-loaded snap buttons, which are unpleasant to use and offer limited flexibility.

The Yakima HangOut was more difficult to install and to adjust than most of its competitors.

The Allen Sports Deluxe 2-Bike rack is a pain to install, and you can’t adjust the arms.

The Ultra Compact 2-Bike, also from Allen Sports, seems cheap and not durable, and while we were driving, the rack shook from side to side quite a bit.

The Saris Solo is a single-bike trunk rack that’s made of cheap plastic and isn’t adjustable. The rack’s set angle allowed the bike to contact our VW Jetta’s rear.

The Küat Trio is not as easy to mount as the RockyMounts SwitchHitter. It seems like it’s designed mainly for thru-axle bikes — we found switching to a fork skewer to be tricky.

Even though the clamp assembly of the fork-mount Yakima HighSpeed is easy to tighten with a knob, it’s cumbersome to have to put it together every time you mount and dismount a bike. Also, the HighSpeed didn’t hold our bikes as solidly as some other racks did.

The SeaSucker Talon is a fork-mount rack that attaches directly to a vehicle’s roof with large suction cups. We found that the suction cups didn’t fit well on some vehicles, especially if they had raised ribs on the roof. When they did fit, they held so tightly that if the bike swayed from side to side, the car’s roof flexed underneath (this is a concern we saw echoed in an Amazon review).

Although you can lock bikes to the Swagman Race Ready, there’s no way to lock the rack to the vehicle. The Race Ready also didn’t hold the bikes as securely as our pick did.

When we were driving on a twisty, bumpy road on a rainy day, the clamp of the Thule Insta-Gater Pro gradually slid down the tire of one bike, and the bike fell over.

We found that the Velcro straps on the Yakima GateKeeper Tailgate Pad weren’t long enough to hold our bikes securely, and on a twisty road they came loose.

Unlike the Yakima’s, the straps on the Thule GateMate Pro tailgate pad were too long; these wouldn’t even strap around any of our modest bike-frame tubes snugly and allow the two ends of the Velcro straps to stick together. A Thule representative said the straps are designed for the beefier frame dimensions of modern mountain bikes. So if you’re running a mountain-bike shuttle outfit, this pad may be for you, but it’s not for most people.

We’ve also tested and dismissed racks from Thule and Yakima that have since been discontinued.

We’re testing a new rack from 1UP USA, the 2" Super Duty. It’s rated for off-road and RV use, and the two-bike version is supposed to be able to carry 100 pounds per bike tray.

Thank you to Footloose Sports in Mammoth Lakes, California, for lending us an ebike to use while testing racks.

This article was edited by Christine Ryan.

Tyler Carlson, Rack Attack, Portland, Oregon, in-person interview, June 1, 2015

Ian Grall, Rack Attack, Portland, Oregon, phone interview, June 1, 2015

Mike Mansmann, East Burke Sports, East Burke, Vermont, phone interview, June 1, 2015

Courtney Gearhart, public affairs, REI, email interview, May 1, 2016

Eric C. Evarts

by Caitlin Giddings

A kids seat mounted to your bike is a good way to begin to nurture your child’s own love of riding for transportation—or just for fun.

by Christine Ryan

After 30-plus hours of research and testing, we think the Delta Cycle Michelangelo Gravity Stand is the best bike rack for storing bikes in limited-space homes.

by Eve O'Neill

by Eve O'Neill

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