Rightline Gear Truck Tailgate Awning - 9' 6" Long x 6' Wide

Video Transcript for Rightline Gear Truck Tailgate Awning Review

Hi everyone, it's Evangeline here at etrailer. And today we'll be taking a look at our Rightline Gear Truck Bed Tailgate Awning. Are you at a game and ready to go tailgating or maybe you're at the beach and you wanna quick and easy campsite to set up or maybe you just wanna camp out at the campground, this is gonna be the truck bed tailgate awning that will help out with that. We have some different pros. We have some different cons. This is gonna be great for quick and temporary solution.

So let's talk about that. So I've set up enough awnings during windy days to know that my personal and most important thing about awnings is how are they strapped down We have three main touch points here. One is going to be where it connects to your truck bed to the side. You also have a strap that goes around your tailgate. You even have this extra pole that goes into the corner of your tailgate, and you have at the end steel poles with sandbags, holding things down.

The sandbag option is unique. You can see that this is designed to be used in your driveway, at a parking lot, or at let's say a paved campground. Usually awnings have stakes that you drive down into the grass or into the dirt. This has these sandbags that makes it easier for you to set up on hard surfaces like this. So holding the tailgate up are gonna be steel poles as well as aluminum poles.

So we have the steel poles connected to those sandbags, giving us that nice support here at the end but then towards your truck, it utilizes both your tailgate as well as these poles to give that support. Now, I personally recommend also supporting those poles with your other items as well to prevent people from knocking it out of space as they get in and out of their truck bed. Adding to this quick and easy solution, you also have these plastic hooks. So these are designed to hook into your truck bed whether it's over by your bumper or by your wheel well. Now the tricky part is just finding a spot to anchor it to especially one that doesn't take up too much force.

The good news is since it is plastic, it's not designed to scratch things up. So this goes over your truck bed and will cover about a quarter or half of your truck bed, depending on the bed length. You do have this water resistant fabric, but not waterproof. So if a quick rain shower kicks up, you do have enough time just to gather your stuff and possibly tear down the tent before you get soaked. This is going to be a very thin fabric. So you do have taped seams underneath, helping maintain that water resistance but then you also have these strap material along the edges so that it doesn't fray on you. So it's not just an awning that sticks up there, you do have that angle here, which makes it perfect for sitting and hanging out on your tailgate or setting up your food and your drinks. So the height from the top of our tailgate here to right where our support bar is, is going to be 4 feet. So let's talk about dimensions. So for width, that's gonna be 6 feet wide and that's from sandbag to sandbag. For height, it's going to be 8 and a half feet tall. And then for length, those are two different measurements there. So length is gonna be about 9 and a half feet long. But if you measure from the taillight, because that's gonna be where your pole is, it's going to be 99 inches long. So that's gonna be a bit over 8 feet. So I'm 5'2" on a good day, and I don't take up much space. So this awning has plenty of room for me. But Dave here, how tall are youAbout 6'4" and I can't even quite touch the ceiling, if I really stretch, I can. So you can see here that there's plenty of space, so whether you're as tall as Dave or as short as me, you can all enjoy this awning. Now be mindful that because it has that traditional awning shape where it's just straight across, you are gonna lose some of that shade. And you're gonna have to constantly readjust where your campsite is if you wanna stay out of the sun. For example, this is how much shade I'm in, right where the chair is and then my feet are already in the sun. Did you know, you can also use this as a privacy shade. So a quick and easy way to do it is just take off the steel poles, re-utilize these sandbags with the hooks on your awning and this is now in the down position. So everything breaks apart to be a bit more compact and the awning itself folds up. Although I do recommend having your friend help you out so you don't tear it since it is thin. They fit inside this stuff sack. And this stuff sack also has the instructions sewed onto the sack. If you're confused about which process goes first or you could watch this video where I explain how to do it, let's take a look at that. So the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to set up the pole. So we have these black steel poles and you'll tell that they're different from the ones used for your awning. So once you have the pole set up, you're then gonna get your sand and put it into your sandbag. You can put the sand directly into the bag but I recommend going ahead, setting 'em up in some Ziploc bags, that way they fit together and they don't make as much of a mess. Now there's two ends to the pole and you're gonna want the end with the hole towards the top to be on the bottom. So if you see that the hole is down here, just go ahead flip that pole around, and then you're gonna attach the sandbag. So you have hook and loop straps on the bag. Just go ahead and put those around the pole. And then you're gonna get your hook and go ahead and attach that to the hole towards the top of that bottom piece and then wrap the rest of the sandbag around. So if you filled it up just right, you should have enough clearance to wrap it around and reach those hook and loop straps. With those steel poles set up, just go ahead set those two sides, because now you're ready to set up your awning. So see where that Rightline Gear logo is, well, you're gonna have that facing down on the ground as you get this set up and unfolded. So there's actually four different types of poles with this awning, and you're just gonna have to figure out which one goes where. So for the awning fabric part, you're gonna have two orange poles. Those will have a little bit of orange at the ends and you're gonna have this thin and shorter gray pole. So first set up the gray pole. This goes across the awning. You do have these little pockets or little loops that you can just feed it through. So that should make it a little bit easier for you to set these poles up. And then at the end, you're gonna have a little pocket that this goes through. And then you have these orange poles and they go diagonally and don't forget to put them into the orange stake pockets once you have them through. And with all the poles, you are gonna have a little bit of flex. So just be careful with that last one with getting it into the stake pocket. Now you're gonna lower your tailgate because you're gonna set up this tailgate portion of your awning and just double check for your corners of your tailgate because this is where some of the poles are gonna go into. So you have three similar looking poles left and they might look unusual since they're gonna have the metal ferrules at the end. One is gonna be longer and it will not have a plastic tip. Two have metal at the end, but plastic tips at the bottom. So this plastic tips will be making contact with your truck. This longer one is going to be your crossbar. So your cross piece is going to go across and then you have these 90 degree connectors at the end. So pop those in there. And now you're gonna flip this over and then place it onto your tailgate. You're then going to get your tailgate poles and those pop into the other end of your 90 degree connectors. And then they go into the corner of your tailgate. Now, since they don't really hold its position, you may want a friend to hold the other side while you get the other one set up. So you have two straps here, your truck bed straps and your tailgate straps. So I do recommend doing your both truck bed straps first, this will loosely go into the lip of your outside edge of your truck bed, just find whichever anchor point works for you. And then loosely tighten it down here up top. And next is your tailgate strap. So this is gonna need a lot of slack because this is gonna go around your tailgate and then underneath your bumper. So just find a lip there, see how this has a good anchor point, and then tighten that strap down. For your steel poles with the sandbags, you have three touch points. So first is going to be this stake pocket. Just get that into place. Then you have this hook and loop patch, wrap that around the pole, and then you have this hook and this elastic cord. So get the hook in there and then you're ready lift this up once you have the other side ready to go. So tips and tricks, this is how I got it set up all by myself. I had it criss-cross. So once they're both connected, you then very carefully set the sandbags in the correct places. With everything set up, now is a great time just to double check those straps, make sure everything's tightened down. You don't wanna put too much tension. So just find the best balance for you and your truck. And just like that, you are done setting up your Rightline Gear Truck Bed Tailgate Tent. Now here at etrailer, we have a bunch of different options for awnings, for tents, for canopies and that's gonna be different depending on what type of adventure are you going on and what type of vehicle are you using this with So for example, we have the Rightline Gear Truck Bed Awning or tent that fits right above your truck bed. And it's great for you if you're camping in underneath the stars. The downside to that is it's not for tailgating since it doesn't cover all of this campsite. We also have more permanent options which are easier and quicker to set up since they're mounted to your vehicle that's gonna be something like the Yakima SlimShady or some options from Kelty. You have your different pros, you have your different cons, some of those cover more surface area and give you more shade, but they're not as fast to set up as the Rightline Gear Tailgate Awning would be. And if you're going camping, you may also want some accessories just to make it more fun. We have the Kelty Camp Chair which is just one example of some of the things you can add. You can get a rug, you can get coolers, you can get blankets, check all those out right here at our hiking category here at etrailer.com. So for a fun, easy awning to set up, great for those tailgating parties, this was a look at the Rightline Gear Truck Tailgate Awning here at etrailer. My name is Evangeline and I hope you enjoyed the journey..