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 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 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.
Hello, neighbors, it's Brad here at etrailer, and today, I'm with Jess from Kuat. They're here giving us a kind of rundown of their bike racks as well as some of their other accessories that are very exciting. And I personally have a Kuat on my vehicle. I love it. There's a lot of different bike racks in different tiers. And they're all platform.
They all kind of do the same thing, but there's different things that might make it a little more specific to each person. So where do we begin For sure, so all of our platform hitch tracks are gonna do the same thing. They're going to get your bike from point A to point B, but how do I know what rack is best for my style, for my type of riding, for my family And that's really what we can go over today. Starting with our luxury option and our most recently released hitch mounted bike rack, would be the Piston family. What we have here on the back of the Tundra is a Piston Pro X.
This is gonna be our lighted bike rack. It has integrated running lights, brake lights, and turn signals. So it's gonna be compatible with your 4-pin or your 7-pin trailer connection. This guy is gonna be also RV rated, so that sets it apart from some of our other hitch tracks as well. You can go on the back of your travel trailer, your fifth wheel, just as long as you have a chassis-mounted hitch installed.
So you can do your e-bikes. So this is e-bike rated up to 67 pounds per bike. We do have an optional accessory available for it as well. So you can roll up that heavy e-bike right off the end of the rack so you don't have to lift that heavy guy. It's pretty universal, so you can do your road bikes all the way up to your 5-inch fat tires, as well as your kids bikes, your 29-inch wheels, your long wheel based downhill bikes.
So just a really good option for a lot of different types of bikes. It's also add-on friendly, so we have a one-bike add-on as well as a two-bike add-on available for it. So if you wanna bring all your friends, if you wanna bring your whole family, you can do three or four bikes max on this rack. Now, all your bike racks, all of them are wheel mounted, which I prefer, you know, it keeps any scratches potentially on the frame from not existing. So why is this one a little bit different For sure, so all of our racks have no frame contact whenever you load a bike on it. However, the Piston Pro X, for example, in the entire Piston family have no bike contact at all. So the double arm design really allows us to only contact the tire itself. So it's not gonna touch your fork at all, it's not gonna touch your frame, it's just. You know, it's only touching rubber so it's really not gonna be able to damage anything at all. And then it'll just ratchet right against the tire so you have a secure fit. And that's also how we were able to make it a fender rated rack, which does set it apart from other hitch mounted racks on the market. With the double arm design, you're able to have those full fenders and still have a safe way to transport your bike. So being premium, this one does have features that the other ones do not have. For sure. What are those For sure, so this is our only rack that's all metal aluminum. There's no plastic on it. So that definitely sets it apart. It gets a little bit of higher price tag for it, but at the end of the day all of our racks have a lifetime warranty. So really go for the rack that fits your needs the best. Now, if there's any added mountain bikers out there, this color may look pretty familiar. You might've seen them on some of the forks on bikes. What is it and is it just a pretty color For sure, so we did an exclusive partnership with Kashima. So all of the Piston actuators are Kashima coated. Is it needed In our opinion, yeah. You know, we're a fun brand. We might be, you know, you might expect us to do something like this if you know our brand. So it's just fun, and they work great. But we do offer another version of this rack that's not Kashima coated. It might save you couple pennies. Piston is gonna be top tier, that's you're fully invested, you're gonna buy a bike rack that's gonna have all the bells and whistles that'll last you forever. I'm not quite ready to buy maybe something that high end, where would I go from there And that's okay, and you're probably with the majority. the Base 2.0, which is part of our NV family, is a really good option for the majority of people. It's middle-of-the-road price level. It can carry a ton of different types of bikes, and it's still feature packed. So the Base 2.0 is gonna be the matte black version of the NV 2.0. Whenever I go over all the features, they're exactly the same as our NV 2.0. The only difference is the color that it comes in, and our NV 2.0 includes that integrated bike work stand, where you can hang your bike on, do roadside maintenance. As with the Base that we have here, it doesn't automatically include that. However, there is an optional work stand that you can add to this rack to just make it the same thing as the NV 2.0. But yeah, whenever we go over the features of this guy, it's gonna be the same for the NV as well. So yeah, you walk up to this rack and this is the rack that you're gonna see the most of. This is our bestselling Kuat rack. It can carry up to 60 pounds per bike, so it is gonna be compatible with some of those e-bikes out there. It also has that accessory bike ramp where you can roll your bike on it to help with the loading. It has fully integrated cable locks right into the back of the tray so you can lock each bike to the rack itself, as well as a locking hitch pin, of course, to keep your rack secure too. It can carry up to five inch fat tires, your kids' bikes, all the way up to those large 29er, and up to a 50-inch wheel base. So it covers a wide variety there. Wide base. And you mentioned a bike stand or a work stand. So being at a trailhead, a lot of times, I had to balance my bike against my car as I'm trying to do little stuff or fix a chain or have even swapped suspension and it's very hard to do. So to get a bike rack with that to be able to do all that, it's huge. Anyone that's doing any trailside maintenance ever, if it comes in handy once, I think it's well worth it. Yeah, spin a wheel, lube a chain right out in the end of your car at the trailhead and you're ready to go. You don't have to lug anything else with you. So what other features do we have with this bike rack in particular Yeah, so something that I think was really well thought out of with this product that maybe a lot of folks don't know is it actually has really awesome adjustability for any bike contact. So we we're able to keep these trays fairly close together and still allow the bikes to have enough room comfortably not to rub on seat posts, handlebars, knocking into each other at all. And how we we're able to do that was we actually installed right here in the back of the center beam, this Allen wrench. And so you'll always have it available and you can use this Allen wrench to loosen the single bolt inside of the front tire scoop and that will allow you to either move one bike up more on one tray or one bike more up down on the other. So you are not gonna have any bikes hitting each other. That also allows you to have a little extra long wheel base option, so it'll move the bike a little bit more up on the tray and allow you to carry those longer 50-inch wheel bases without having any overhang on the rear tire tray. Awesome. Yeah. So if the Piston is maybe outta my range right now, I could get this, be completely happy, it's gonna do all the same stuff, correct Absolutely, yeah. This is for everyone. This is a great default. This is a great rack to start at whenever you're beginning your rack choosing journey and a great rack for the majority of folks out there. Now, out on the road, I'm kind of a nerd, I look for bike racks, and then Kuat, being a Missouri brand, we see it all over the place, and the one that always stands out aesthetically is the Sherpa. Color scheme, awesome, you can also get in white. If you ever see it white on white car, it looks awesome. (Jess chuckles) So tell me about the Sherpa. Yeah, absolutely. Whenever we decided to design the Sherpa 2.0, we wanted to create a bike rack that folks just wanted to keep on the back of their car. So this rack doesn't take up as much of a footprint than maybe some of our other hitch racks have. It's a little bit smaller, it's a little bit more compact. It also only weighs 32 pounds, so it's really manageable. This rack is gonna be easy to take on and off of your vehicle if you don't plan on keeping it on the back of your car because of the material that it's made out of. Now with it being 90% of aluminum, it's not rated to carry as heavy of bikes as maybe some of our other options. However, it's still rated to carry up to two 40-pound bikes. So your regular road bikes, your gravel bikes, and maybe your really lightweight e-bikes, it is compatible. You just wanna keep that in mind whenever you are choosing the Sherpa 2.0 because it's gonna max out a little bit lower specs than some of the other options. However, it is able to carry up to a three-inch fat tire, up to a 47-inch wheel base, and then again a 40-pound bike. So I see this also has integrated cable locks. So it's gonna be a semi-integrated cable lock. The cable lock itself is not stored inside of the rack when not in use. However, it will connect directly to this outermost tray whenever you want to go and lock your bike to it. So semi-integrated, but whenever you're not hauling bikes, just throw that bad boy in your glove compartment and you're good to go. Now, if someone got this and they want to expand onto it, is that possible It's not gonna be an expandable rack. The Sherpa 2.0 is only able to carry up to two bikes, so it's not gonna be a good option for someone that maybe is going to wanna carry three, four bikes in the future. We would just say try a different rack. You know, we'll point you to a different option of our family and we'll get the rack that's best for you. So now we move to the Transfer, and this is one that I've had on my car for past two years and I love it. Now, when I bought my bike, I spent a lot of money and I really didn't wanna spend a ton on a rack. I didn't, as much as I'd love the Piston, it's not feasible. Sure. This seems like it checks a lot of boxes for those people. Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned you have the two-bike version of this rack, but while on display, we have the three-bike version, that's because the Transfer family of racks, you can order it as a one-bike, a two-bike, or a three-bike version. And it also has a compatible one-bike add-on. So you can make your one-bike a two-bike, a two-bike a three-bike, and your three-bike a four-bike. So that means that this rack is a really good option for that entry level cyclist because of that price point, or it is good for that budget family because you can do four bikes on this rack, and it's about half the cost of a four-bike NV 2.0, which is another rack option of ours. So another bike rack, this one we're mounted up to the IBEX system. Tell me about this bike rack. Yeah, sure, so this is our new Piston SR. It's going to look very similar to our Piston family of racks, and that's because it's a part of that family. So this rack is going to be a single-bike rooftop bike rack. So it's going to attach to your, you know, your crossbars, your square bars, round bars, aero bars, compatible with pretty universal crossbar. And so this is a really good option for the wheel-on as well. So you don't have to use your fork to load it on your roof anymore. It's gonna be a wheel-on rooftop rack. It has integrated security as well, so you can lock your bike directly to the rack. And then, yeah, same thing with the weights and everything. It can do your five-inch fat tire, your 50-inch long wheel base, and so it's a really good option for a roof rack. Okay, so now, since this is potentially a roof-mounted, we don't have that here, but there are a few points that make it specifically for that. Yeah, for sure. So we added a couple features since it is gonna be on a roof that is gonna be different than if it we're on your hitch, which would be these bump stops. So these arms cannot open all of the way to cause any damage as well as these extra lock points. So you can just pop it there, and then you'll activate your button to open the the arm up. As well as there's T channel all the way along the bottom of the rack here, so that's going to allow you to have a really good adjustability for the roof so you can move it more up on your crossbar so your hatch isn't going to hit it. So that definitely sets it apart from maybe some other options, as well as we have a optional hitch accessory that we'd love to tell you about as well. So I don't have crossbars on my car, is this not the best option for me or do I have options You do have options for sure. If you love the Piston SR, but maybe you don't want it on top of your roof, we do have an optional hitch accessory that you can add to the rack to make it a single bike hitch rack as opposed to a single bike roof rack. Whenever you do have the hitch accessory attached, it can only carry one bike so it's not gonna be able to be added onto. But if that's all you're carrying, if it's just you hitting the trails, then you know what do you have to lose. So Jess, thank you so much for breaking this all down. Kind of got an idea of where someone would point their direction into different bike racks based on what they want. So thanks for all your information. Thank you so much for having me and thanks for listening.
Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars (5 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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