Review: Raxter Bike Rack
Who:
From Raxter Racks website:
Introducing RAXTER – The new standard for value in a wheel mount hitch rack. RAXTER is lightweight, it’s EASY to install, EASY to load, EASY to store!
The innovative design of RAXTER gives you the ability to move bikes forward or backward during loading and is independent of wheelbase. This provides unequalled flexibility to load any combination of bike styles or sizes.
We subscribe to the design credo “Keep it light, keep it simple�?. Simple yet effective, marine grade Velcro straps are perfectly suited for providing absolute security for your bikes. Moving parts are minimized. There are no small, intricate parts to rust or become gunked up from road debris. RAXTER’s simplicity makes it reliable.
Product Tested:
Raxter Folding Rack, 2 Bike for 2 inch hitch
Website’s MSRP:
$329.99
About Me:
6’0�? 210lbs, 27 year old male. I’m a mountain biking enthusiast who enjoys rocking the 29er wheels.
Swing Arm holding 29er wheel/tire
Testing Grounds:
All over Southern California + a road trip to Colorado (2,000+ miles)
First Impression:
The Raxter Rack came to us in two separate boxes. The first one was a long box that held the trays and the non-folding arm. The second box was a much smaller box that held the folding arm.
It took me 10 minutes to attach the trays onto the non-folding arm.
It took me another 5 minutes of trying to FOLD the arm before I realized that I attached the wheel trays to the NON-folding arm.
It took me another ten minutes to remove the trays off the NON-folding arm and to attach them to the folding arm.
Although off to an inauspicious start the Raxter Rack has performed beyond expectations.
Holds my 2.1 inch Maxxis Ignitors with a ton of room to spare
Strengths:
I’ve been using the Raxter Rack exclusively, except when I take more than 2 bikes, since we received it a few months ago and to put it simply, I am very impressed. First off, the rack is very easy to use. After you open up the wheel arms, you place the bike in the wheel trays. You close the wheel arms over the tires and velcro in four places per bike. Just looking at it, you know exactly what you need to do.
The rack is very quick to use. Stick the bike on the wheel tray, velcro in 4 places and your done. I have tried securing a bike with just 3 velcros and, when I’m really lazy, with just two (what!? I was testing the abilities of the rack). Thankfully, it is still very secure.
The velcro straps do have a small learning curve. Actually, it’s more of a remembering curve as in you have to remember which way the strap should go. Basically, the straps should go around the frame or tire first then around the wheel or arm tray. Going the opposite way means you won’t have any velcro to work with, doh!
Securely holding the Mono9 (with 29″ tires)
The Raxter rack is secure. When you strap your bike in the correct way, the bike stays on. In fact, Moe took his brand new Trek Remedy on a 2,000+ mile round trip journey to Colorado without any problems.
An optional feature that came with our rack is the hitch that uses a folding arm. This is a great feature because it is sturdy and easy to use. You push a button and rotate the wheel trays and the button snaps into place at the next hole. This great feature is especially convenient when storing the rack as it reduces the size of the rack significantly. I stand the Raxter Rack along the wall of my garage between a tall cabinet and some shelving. There is plenty of space for the rack in this space, but if I didn’t have the folding arm part of the rack would probably stick out and catch anything going by like my car.
The Raxter Rack held a variety of different sized bikes during the testing period and it never had a problem with holding any of them. I’ve had tires up to 2.35 inches in the tray all the way down to thin road bikes. The rack could have easily accommodated larger tires in the wheel trays while still securely keeping the bike in place.
Straps can be slid along the wheel tray to reposition bike
The design of the wheel trays are such that one bike’s cranks can be easily situated to not touch another bike. Occasionally I had to lower one’s saddle to accommodate the handlebars, but this wasn’t a common occurrence because the wheel trays allowed me to slide a bike farther apart to accommodate each other.
The Raxter Rack worked perfectly for my rear facing exhaust. A previous rack we tested did not have an upward bend for the rack trays. This meant that rear facing exhaust systems would tend to warm up the wheel tray and the tire in the tray. The Raxter rack improved upon this by having an upward bend in the arm that avoided the hot exhaust fumes. This worked perfectly for my vehicle and kept the wheel tray from heating up.
Weaknesses:
After a couple of weeks of use one of the straps unraveled a bit. Because of the way the straps & velcro are sewn together it’s highly doubtful the strap would have ever completely unraveled. However, before the unraveling strap could become an issue I consulted our resident thread man Randy for some advice. He suggested applying a flame, preferably from a lighter, to stop the nylon strap from unraveling. I did this to the first strap and liked the results so much that I applied the flame to all the straps (I was also having so much fun I didn’t want to stop playing with the fire). No more straps unraveling.
Velcro strap has been flamed!
The Raxter Rack does not angle or rotate down out of the way of the rear hatch/door. If there was one thing I’d like for the Raxter Rack to do is to angle downwards so that you can access the rear hatch of an SUV without having to remove any bikes. It’s a small weakness but it’d be a nice bonus if this was an available feature.
Summary:
The Raxter Rack is a well designed rack that does not make you feel like you have to constantly scan your rear view mirror to make sure the bike is still there! It does what it is supposed to do: transport your bike(s) to the trailhead, safely and securely.
Folding Arm: Push button, rotate arm from horizontal to vertical, button reappears in other hole
The folding arm provides a bit of security by rotating the rack upwards when not in use and the heavy duty velcro straps are an easy, simple and fool proof system for safely holding your bikes.
The Raxter Rack simply inspires confidence knowing that, when properly used (and sometimes even when not properly used), your bike(s) will get to the trailhead with you. I would highly recommend this rack to any hitch mount user.
For more info about the Raxter Racks, click here.