This platform rack has arms that deploy with the tap of a lever, making loading and unloading bikes almost effortless. Arms hold your bikes securely by the wheels. Bikes can be loaded onto the wheel trays front to back to prevent handlebar contact.
Features:
Specs:
The Piston Pro carries 4 bikes, however the front 2 positions can be easily removed so there's less of a load on you and your vehicle if only 2 people are going riding. When it's not needed, simply remove the front section with the included tool and throw it in your trunk or leave it at home. A single bike add-on (sold separately) lets you convert the rack into a 3-bike carrier.
The Piston Pro has arms with hydro-pneumatic struts that deploy automatically by simply tapping the release levers, so you can easily load your bikes with both hands. They operate like the gas struts on your SUV that lift and support the rear hatch.
To load your bikes, tap the levers to deploy the hydro-pneumatic arms, set your bikes on the trays, and rotate the arms up over the wheels. Ratchets hold the arms in place, so once you squeeze the arms against the wheels there's nothing left to do. When you're ready to unload your bikes, tap the levers to release the arms - it's that simple.
The U-shaped arms have bridges that secure your bikes firmly by the wheel, so they won't scratch or scuff the bike's frame. Each arm has labelled settings for its bridge - 20", 24", 26", 27.5" and 29" tires. Just pinch the spring-loaded levers on each bridge and slide it to the corresponding tire size for each bike - no tools required.
The Piston Pro doesn't have cradles for the wheels like most platform-style bike racks. Instead, it has wheel trays that allow you to position your bikes on the rack exactly where you want them, not where the cradles dictate you place them. This helps prevent your handlebars and other bike parts from bumping into each other. Additionally, the trays have grooves in the tracks that accommodate narrow 18c road bike tires up to 5" fat bike tires.
The rack tilts down with your bikes loaded. So, whether you're at the trail or the grocery store, you don't have to remove your bikes to access your cargo area. It also folds up when not in use. This leaves a smaller footprint, so you can keep the rack on your vehicle to park in your garage. And if you want to remove it, it doesn't take up as much space to store it.
The spring-loaded hand and foot pedal is easily accessible when the rack is tilted up. When you're ready to load your bikes, simply step on the pedal and lower the rack with both hands. To tilt the rack with bikes loaded, reach under your front bike and pull up on the pedal with your hand. No more crawling through your bikes or squeezing between the rack and the vehicle to hit the tilt release lever. To return it to the upright position, pull up on the lever and raise the rack until it clicks into position.
The rack is easy to install. Just slide the shank into your hitch and use the included security tool to tighten the flatlock cam. As you tighten the cam, an anti-rattle wedge is deployed inside the shank to help take play out of the hitch connection.
The security tool has a hollow-point hex indentation, so it can only be used with the Piston Pro. This helps keep the rack secure on your vehicle. When you're done using it, you can store it in your trunk or glove compartment.
A cable lock is included to secure your bikes to the rack. The 12-mm thick, braided steel cable threads through your bike's frames, and locks back into the rack. The cable has a soft rubber cover that won't scratch or scuff your bikes' paint. A stainless steel hitch lock is also included to secure the rack to your vehicle.
An aluminum ramp (sold separately) lets you roll your heavy e-bikes on and off the rack - no heavy lifting required. The ramp telescopes to ensure it touches the ground so you don't have to lift your bike at all. It can also be used to decrease the angle of approach to make loading even easier.
A hook-and-loop strap kit (sold separately) lets you carry bikes with fenders. The Fender Kit Only setting on each arm indicates where to place the straps so they don't make contact with your bike's fenders.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hey everyone, it's Evangeline here at etrailer and today we have the Kuat Piston Pro four bike platform rack. We're gonna talk all about this bike rack. We're gonna talk about its features, its pros, its cons and help you decide if this is the right bike rack for you. This is a dual wheel mount bike rack that secures your bikes by the front and the rear wheels giving you a lot of versatility for different types of frames. Now this holds the bike by a front and a rear wheel mount. So there's zero frame contact.
So whether you have a carbon fiber frame or a step through frame or an alternative frame, it doesn't matter. It's not holding to any part of that. But as it holds onto the bike this is operated by a hydro-pneumatic piston also called the one touch lever. So it really is just one touch and that wheel cradle pops out. So if you wanna engage it, you push up against the bike and make sure it's fully secured against your wheel.
Then you also have features like this bike rack tilts away, it folds up, it has locks and it is actually really easy to transform this bike rack from a four bike to a two bike and back to a four bike. This is made of mostly metal, it's strong, it's durable and it lasts almost forever. The downside to that is it's really heavy. So we're going to talk about that. We're gonna talk about those features, we're gonna talk about those disadvantages and then that way you can take all that information and then figure out and decide is this gonna be the best one for you.
So let's start with will this bike rack fit your bikes or rather will your bikes fit on the bike rack So in the four bike configuration, it has a 40 pound per bike weight capacity, which is still pretty good and honestly pretty normal for four bike platform racks. But if you have extra heavy electric bikes, not as good. The perk though is if you do take off the two bike add-on and you revert back to the two bike base you then go back to the 67 pound per bike weight capacity. So that's something worth considering whenever you're adding on those four bikes, whether you're just sticking around with two, your weight capacity changes. Some other numbers here are going to be can fit a maximum wheel base of 53 inches.
Although once they interact with each other that number might change a little. We'll talk about bike to bike interaction in a bit but next thing is that it does have a maximum tire weight capacity of five inches plus a tire size capacity of 18 inch small tires all the way up to 29 inch which is what most of our mountain bikes have. There are little spots here to adjust for those different wheel sizes from your 29ers or 700cs all the way down to this one. Now this says fender kit only. So if you do have a bike with fenders you can still carry it but the fender kit is a hook and loop strap that goes around and gives you that extra security since it does sit so low. It does have a pretty cool way that it makes those adjustments. If you pinch here you can then adjust this chock up and down. So once you line it up with the holes, it snaps into place and if it's not lined up it will tell you because then you'll see these red indicators. That feature along with some other small features make it a lot easier to carry around multiple bikes. If you've ever had to carry more than two bikes on a rack then you know it's a major hassle because all of them fit differently and figuring out what's the best fit is always a struggle. So if you're the type of person that tends to pick up your friends so they can all go for a trail ride this might be the bike rack for you. So let's talk about that bike to bike interaction. To help out with finding the best fit for your bikes fortunately this has trays and trays allow you to slide or I guess roll your bike side to side to get the best fit because you're always gonna be dealing with seats interfering with handlebars and pedals interfering with each other. So with the ability to roll this around you might be able to get a better fit but there is something to be mindful with that. As you are engaging your wheel mount, listen closely, right there, that's when it starts clicking and starts ratcheting. So that's the point when you can secure your bike but if you have to maneuver your bike really far away to get around like that seat, let's say here for example, this would not be a good spot. So this helps prevent you from overextending your bike out but it does kind of take away a little bit of that wiggle room with finding that space. What helps ease the hassle of carrying around four bikes is the selective unloading feature. So for example, maybe you've loaded up your bikes in order of weight as you should. Heaviest closest to the hitch, lightest further away but the first friend that you're going to drop off has the heavier bike right over here. So rather than unloading one, two to get to the third, you could just take off the third bike. Here's how I do it. Because of those wheel mounts, I first operate the piston, push this down and then push this wheel mount all the way down to the ground if possible. And because that's free and clear if I carefully maneuver this bike around dodging pedals, dodging handlebars, dodging seats, I'm not saying it's easy, I'm just saying it's possible then I can take this bike off. There we go. And now my friend can go on their way without having to take all of the bikes off. So definitely a little tricky to do, but still doable. Now let's talk about that tilt away function. It is not fun, especially when you have this fully loaded up with 40 pound of bikes. That's a lot of weight that you're tilting away. So I have a friend here. I have Brad. Hello. Who's gonna tilt this bike rack away from me. So Brad, what's your plan of action I think my arm is long enough to reach that I'm gonna be leaning against the bike to do it, which is not ideal. Especially if you've had a ride, it's full of mud. Absolutely. It's full of road grime and you're pushing against your bike's components too. Yep, and there is kind of a method too with this style of latch, you do kind of have to lift up to take some of that weight off, otherwise it's not gonna unlatch. So as I'm kind of leaning against the bikes reaching for the handle, I'm also kinda lifting up on the bike rack here and that allows me to get it. Now obviously I'm kind of tangled up in the bike and this is quite a bit of weight here. It goes really low too. Don't get crushed. Was that fun Not even close. Not really. Hopefully if you do have three friends with you riding their bikes you also have that help with you to help lower. So maybe two people on each side to support that weight and that way you could dodge out of the way before you get a pedal to the face. But thank you for helping out Brad. Absolutely. If you could lift it back up that would be awesome too. Alright, latches right into place and you only had to hold the bike just a little bit for that. Yep. So again, not ideal, but made it work. Thanks Brad. No problem. We saw that it was a lot of effort to tilt the bike rack away so why would you do it Well, if you needed to open up your hatch, your trunk or to lower your tailgate. See here that there's space between our large hatch door and our pedals and our handlebars. If we needed to grab some things real quick, maybe we had helmets or our waters back here, maybe if we we're on a lower vehicle, we needed to switch out our shoes. This will be a nice and convenient spot to do so. But is it worth the effort and weight of tilting all your bikes away Well, that is up to you to decide. Now, Kuat does recommend the Kuat Pivot which is their swing away hitch extender as an alternative to tilting your bike rack away. And that might be something you are considering too which would be awesome 'cause then that would clear up all this space. Just remember that pretty much any extension on your hitch receiver's gonna reduce your tongue weight capacity by almost half. So with this being a very heavy bike rack and if you have this fully loaded with heavy bikes be mindful of your actual tongue weight capacity and make sure you don't overload that. Let's talk about security. So with this bike rack, you get three lock cores. One for the hitch receiver and the hitch pin that goes and secures the bike rack to the vehicle. The second one is gonna be for your two bike base and the third one is on your two bike add-on. Now what might happen is that your add-on and the base may not have the same lock core. You can purchase extra lock cores here at each trailer if you wanna switch those out so that they can match. But with the base as well as with the add-on, you get these cables. Each of these cable locks is gonna be nine feet long which can be helpful if you're securing the frames but if you're securing both the front wheel and the frames you are gonna have to get a little creative with how you do it. I wrap the cable through the rear frame around the second frame around the front tire. Now around this other bike's front tire, I might even be able to go through this other frame before going into that lock. And now that's secured. So it is a decent length for a cable lock but here's something to think about. When you do drive, please take the cable lock off because you now have a lot of extra movement on your bikes that you might not want. So it is a hassle to get that set up every single time that you park. It's nice that it's there if you're parked overnight but not as nice if you're just parked at the gas station. So here we are, we're going to take the bike rack out onto the test course here at etrailer and that way we can see how it performs. So we're gonna start with our bumps course. So this is gonna demonstrate hitting a curb or exiting out of a driveway. Everything looks good. The bikes are shaking side to side, but they're all shaking together so we know that they're secure. Now we're gonna do our slalom. And our slalom is where we do our quick and evasive maneuvers. So this is when you need to make sharp turns as well as U-turns. Alright, let's see how our bikes maneuver here even with our sharp U-turn. We are going. Looking good even with some speed. How about our quick breaks Looks good. And now we're back inside our studio. So here we're gonna go on to the next part of the video which is how does your bike rack fit on your vehicle What is it like once a bike rack is in your garage So to see that, we're going to take these bikes all off. Notice how quick and easy it was just to hit those pistons and go. This is what the bike rack looks like with all the bikes off and even without all the bikes it still takes up a lot of space. So let's take some measurements to see exactly how much. What I like to do is I measure from the center of the hitch pin hole which is gonna be right there and then I measure to the end of the bike rack because no matter what type of hitch receiver you have or what vehicle you have at least that measurement will still be the same. So measuring there, I have it at 49 inches and that's just a little over four feet. That's a lot of space. Another thing I talk about is ground clearance. So showing you where I measure on our shank that's a little over 21 inches off the ground. So 21 and a quarter and then going over here to the tray to the ground, 34 and a quarter so that's 13 inches of shank rise. So all these measurements will help you figure out if this will have enough space inside of your garage if you have a small one or if you need to park into a tight parking spot. Plus if you have enough ground clearance. So if this sits really high off the ground you're lifting heavy bikes off the ground. If this sits pretty low to the ground you might bottom out when going up steep inclines. This also has a fold up or compact position and remember how Brad pulled that lever earlier to tilt the bike rack away Well this time I'm gonna pull that lever but I'm gonna push up on the rack. So I do have short arms, so it's a little trickier for me. I'm gonna support the bike rack and lift up as I pull that lever and then make sure it's pulled as I push up on the bike rack. Whew, that was a lot of weight but now we're in the folded position. Let's talk about clearances. Measuring for our closest point it's going to be center of the hitch pin hole to where the arms of the bike rack are and that's gonna be six inches away. This is an important measurement if you have a spare tire or if your hitch is seated deep inside your bumper. Next measurement is gonna be the length added to the back of the car. Again, center hitch pin hole, that's gonna be 16 inches. Big difference compared to when it was folded down. You'll want it in this position when you just drive around town or if your garage do not have enough space for the bike rack when it's in the down position. Some people put it into their hitch receiver like this and then they drive out of the garage, lower it, and then they load their bikes up. The bike rack on its own is 108 pounds, so it's really hefty. And depending on the height of your hitch receiver this may or may not be more or less difficult for you. So I'm gonna have someone else lift this for me. I got Shane here. He's gonna lift the bike rack up and into the hitch. Fortunately, it's evenly distributed which would help out with getting it into place. Now you do have to get that hitch pin hole lined up and this is usually a tricky part for the first time because you have to push it back and forth. You make sure it's all there. But once you have that lined up you then get your hitch pin and lock. So other bike racks, they use bolts to secure the bike rack. In this case, it's just a pin. The keys do not remove from the lock unless the pin is in and once it is in, there is a dust cap to cover and protect it. Even though the bike rack is now secured in your hitch receiver, it's gonna be wobbly until you use the anti-rattle mechanism. So notice this hamper proof bolt at the end of the rack and how it matches up with your Allen key or your security Allen key included with your kit. Now the other side is going to have a surrounded edge that cannot be used so you have to tighten it down with this side of the tool. Now this is going to expand a ball joint in your bike rack. Make sure this is seated and then that's going to secure it in the hitch. So that was an overview of the Kuat Piston Pro. Now if you're comparing this though with other things the first thing people compare it to is what's the difference between the Kuat Piston Pro and the Kuat Piston Pro X Well, the main differences are going to be the Kashima coating for the pistons. The Pro does not have that Kashima coating and the Pro X has lights and wiring while the Pro does not. But in terms of construction, in terms of weight capacity and durability, very much the same. When comparing this bike rack with some other brands though one that is very similar to the Kuat Piston Pro is gonna be the RockyMounts GuideRail. That one has like a two bike, a three bike and it has a dual wheel mount design so zero frame contact but something that is very, very, very different. But I actually consider is gonna be the Hollywood Racks Destination four. This is a four bike platform rack that can carry the same number of bikes, a similar amount of weight at 35 pounds per bike but takes up a lot less space and a lot less weight. So if lifting the bike rack up into the hitch seemed a little daunting just because of how heavy the Piston Pro is and you just want something that you can install all by yourself, this might be something worth considering. Definitely does not have the premium features that the Kuat Piston Pro does but really there's pros and cons to every bike rack. And the whole point of this is making sure you know all the information to make the best decision. But right here, right now, this was a look at the Kuat Piston Pro four bike platform rack at etrailer.com. My name is Evangeline and I hope you enjoy the journey.
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars (6 Customer Reviews)
This platform rack has arms that deploy with the tap of a lever, making loading and unloading bikes almost effortless. Arms hold your bikes securely by the wheels. Bikes can be loaded onto the wheel trays front to back to prevent handlebar contact.etrailer does an excellent job reviewing and showcasing its products. We spent many hours of research on the site before deciding on the Kuat. Assembly was fairly simple and quick. The features of the rack make it easy to use. Stable ride for our bikes down a wide variety of conditions (highway, dirt road, wash boards). Expensive, but the ease of use and quality make it worthwhile.
I researched tray racks for mountain bikes and knew that Kuat's Piston Pro was the best rack for my needs. I love etrailer for the how to install videos, support and pricing. If etrailer sells an item I'm interested in I purchase from them. I do this because of how hard they work for their customers. This rack is exceptional. Build quality is first class. The assembly was simple, the locking cable and hitch lock are very sturdy. My 29" wheel full suspension Specialized fits perfectly. My son's smaller Scott Mountain Bike also fits perfectly. We are getting Fat Tire Bikes and the trays support 5" tire widths. Adjustments for wheel size is simple, loading a bike is even easier. The bikes are solidly secured in place. 10 out of 10.
It was a surprise treat to have it setup and installed under an hour! Works very efficiently as advertised def worth look into it.
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