I want to do my first big trip for an extended weekend. It would be dope to fit 4 people in my midsize suv and bring all four bikes with us.
I believe the maximum tongue weight is 10% to 15% of 3,500 pounds. So 350 to 525 pounds. It does have a 2 inch receiver.
It feels like tongue weight is the major concern with any hitch style carrier. The SUV can pull 3,500 pounds, but the tongue weight is always much lower.
What option do you think is the best?
Tray style
Right now I have a tray style rack which holds 2 bikes. I could buy an extension to make this a 4 bike rack. I already have the kuat nv2 base. This weights 52 pounds. The addon is another 36 pounds. Let’s assume each bike weighs 35 pounds x 4 (number of bikes = 140 pounds + 52 (base) + 36 (addon). 228 pounds seems low enough in regards to tongue weight? I would be making a 5 hour drive at highway speeds…
Vertical style
[https://www.velocirax.com/products/velocirax-412](https://www.velocirax.com/products/velocirax-412) this looks awesome to use, but it says I need a class 3 hitch with tongue weight of 500 pounds. I’m not sure my midsize SUV can handle this… I think most of these vertical style have a high tongue weight requirement.
Tray + Roof rack
I could do 2 in the tray style and purchase roof racks to do 2 up top. How much of a pain is it getting them up and down? Does it affect driving a lot? Obviously I wouldn’t be adding any tongue weight so the hitch isn’t a concern. I have also hear the roof bars are quite noisy when not in use…
Trailer
The suv should be able to tow 3,500 pounds. I could buy a trailer to put the bikes in. [http://huckwagons.com/](http://huckwagons.com/) these look awesome, but super expensive. I don’t own any kind of trailer today. If I understand the website these start at 5,394.04. I can’t go anywhere near that price tag.
Two vehicles
I could just make someone else do the drive and bring 2 bikes with them. This is the cheapest and easiest for me, but a pain for my friends.
by Pumpedandbleeding
9 Comments
Have a velocirax 4x on a mid size SUV. Have driven it all over. Would highly recommend. Bikes can be locked to it during stops. Bikes ride well and won’t damage each other. Easy to load and unload. They have great customer service. I’ve never had any concern with it fully loaded up. I would buy another one without question if something happened to the one I have.
Why not just get a 4 bike tray rack? Personally I love 1up but loads of good options out there.
The velociracks are great for shuttling but suck for daily ownership – makes using the hatch a pita and they stick up above most cars killing gas mileage. With a tray rack you can just fold the tray down to access the trunk super well. Even with bikes you can access the trunk on most cars by folding all the down 🙂
Also keep in mind the 1up works with every type of bike. The shuttle hanging racks are not good with road bikes.
Since you have a 2 inch receiver, it helps alot. But one thing to be aware of is tongue weight will always be less than the rated limit, but need to account for leverage.
When you’re towing something with the tongue, you don’t need to really worry about the other side flexing vertically, unlike with a tray bike rack. That said, 2 inch receivers are alot better at absorbing this torque than 1 1/4 inch receivers
Is your hitch stock or aftermarket?
Roof racks, how tall are you? Can you pick the bike up and put it on the roof without needing a stepladder?
You’ll be 100% fine with 4 bikes on a hitch rack.
Planning for 4 bikes I’d go Velocirax
Aare you using your vehicles maximum tow weight to calculate maximum tongue weight? Or are you using the Class rating on your hitch itself? Some of your comments are confusing me, sorry if I’m misunderstanding.
The tongue weight is determined by the class of hitch, not the towing capacity. The reason the two are related is that 10-15% of a trailers weight ends up being placed on the tongue, so a 3500 lb trailer has to be mated to a hitch that can handle that tongue weight. Most 2″ hitches are going to be class III and above.
I say this because I have a Kia Sorrento, and a 3 tray rack, and really wish I got a velociraptor style rack some days. Clearance when backing out of the driveway or going through any kind of backroad is abysmal, and I’ve absolutely smacked that rack a few times.
I can’t weigh in on tongue weight because I had my friends who know more about this figure that all out for me, but I drive a Crosstrek and used to have the 4-tray Kuat NV. I hated it. It is so freaking heavy and moving the rack up/down is miserable. Also, when you have 4 bikes you almost always have to play bike Tetris to get the handlebars to play nice with one another.
I switched to the LoLoRack with the foot pedal add-on and will never go back. It’s so much easier to move, the bikes always fit, and it’s lighter than most of the other vertical carry racks (64lbs). I’ve also never seen a bike fall off this rack (knock on wood) but I have seen bikes fall off several other vertical carry racks, including the Velocirax.
https://loloracks.com
I have a cx9 with a 2 inch receiver and regularly put 6 bikes on it and drive around no issue.
There’s also no issue with me accessing the trunk with 6 bikes on it, so I don’t know what others are talking about. It’s easily the best rack I’ve ever used. Three 200 pound people can stand on it for a ride around the parking lot lol.
I have a tray, can carry 4 bikes on my Subaru Ascent pretty easily.