Piston SR Bike Rack Mount for Ibex Truck Bed Racks

Video Transcript for Kuat Ibex Truck Bed Rack Piston SR Bike Rack Mount Review

Hi everyone, Aiden here with etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at these mounting brackets for your Piston SR Bike Rack that allow you to attach it to the Ibex Truck Bed Racks. Now, the Piston SR is going to be Kuat roof-mounted bike rack that typically attaches to roof crossbars. But if you've got a truck and you've got an IBEX or looking at the IBEX and want to know the things it can do, this is one of those pieces that can mount to it and allow you to carry your bike off to the side. Let's check it out. And here is that bracket.

It's gonna come with two to a kit, so both of them will be used to attach your bike rack to and it channel mounts using these two bolt locations, attaching into these two channels of the IBEX here. Now, the bracket itself is an anodized aluminum. It looks really nice and blends in with everything, but it's gonna be plenty corrosion-resistant and very thick to maintain a strong structure. And underneath the channel on our Piston SR, we're gonna have two bolts that go up into that channel and tighten down, and that's how it all gets secured, making for a really strong fit. Now, you have crossbars on the top of your IBEX and you could certainly mount this bike rack up on top without any adapters if you wanted.

But the advantage to doing it down to the side like this is the ease of access. I don't have to lift it near as high to access it here as I would if it we're on top. So when I'm doing the initial setup process, it's very easy to do with one person. If you've ever tried to load a roof-mounded bike rack by yourself, you'll know that even on a short vehicle, it is a pain, let alone doing it on a truck where that roof line is gonna be even higher. So the fact that you can do it solo is really nice.

And the same goes for loading it back up. There's just less distance to lift, meaning it's quicker, it's easier, and it's more convenient when you're looking to just set up and go somewhere where you can ride. Now, this style of rack, I've seen before from other brands. One of the people that used to work with us down on the video team actually had this on his truck, but the only difference is that his bike was fork-mounted, as opposed to this Piston SR style where the front tire is still on. And I think I'd be a lot more confident in it if it was fork-mounted just because having that front tire on, there's still a lot of movement here in the front tire specifically, and that's a problem with just the bike rack itself, not so much the brackets.

We did take this out on our test course, though, to see how it performed, and I was less than enthused with the results. Some of the things we noticed were a lot of movement, again, in the bike rack itself, but I did even notice some flex in the brackets, particularly over the alternating speed bumps. The single speed bumps and the side-to-side action we're okay. Not my favorite, but the alternating speed bumps is where we saw a lot of that. And I think where that's coming from is having all of this weight so off-center from the truck. If we had this mounted on the roof or closer to the center of the truck, I think the distribution of the weight would be a little bit better. But because it's all off to the side here, it's kind of lopsided and it really just shows whenever you're hitting those bumps and the vehicle's kind of off-centered too. So for me, it's something that makes me a little hesitant. I still like this a lot for the ease of loading and for how much space you save on top. Let's say you've got a tent on your IBEX or you want to just save some space in the truck bed, I think it's gonna be really convenient. But depending on where you're going with your truck, if you're going on really rough roads, then I'd maybe steer clear of this mounting option. But if you're not taking it over that rough of terrain and your bike is light, then I think it'll be okay. It's really just down to how you're using it and your comfort level with that kind of movement. But that's just been our quick look at the Piston SR Mounting Brackets for your Kuat IBEX Truck Bed Rack. Thanks for watching.