jpescatore

Short review: heavy and expensive but otherwise essentially perfect.

I have a cheap Allen hanging style trailer hitch bike carrier I bought at Walmart 15 years ago after I stopped driving a pickup truck. It has worked great for 1-3 and occasional 4 bikes on short and long trips. But, it was very rattly and I had to wedge shims in to keep the rack from jiggling all over the place and the hanging type was tough overall on the bikes. That didn't matter much on the old bikes and on short trips, but with newer bikes now and my wife and I planning multiple biking trips that involve long rides I decided to buy a platform-type trailer hitch rack. A side goal was to make it easier for my wife to gets bikes on the back when biking with her friends.

Did the research, had a 20% coupon from REI (plus REI member dividends) and ended up buying the Kuat NV 2.0 two bike carrier. The installation instructions were the usual cartoon kind of Ikea style, with lots of huh? and WTF?? on my end. There are really only 4 bolts to put in but it was more difficult than it should have been.

The hitch includes a cam adjustment that snugs it up great - no rattling. The rack is heavy, I was able to get it into the receiver on my own but I think it is really a two person operation. Very easy to get our bikes on it and during a test drive everything was very stable.

I immediately had a great test of it - two touring cyclists riding e-bikes were in the area and I offered to pick them up and give them a place to stay. The e-bikes had sloping top tubes, fenders, front and rear racks and weighed about 50 lbs each. By tilting each bike a bit I could get the front wheel lock around the front racks and then locked down. I brought some padding just in case, but their fenders were plastic and squashing down against the front tire wasn't a problem. Getting them home, off at a bike shop, back on, back off and back on again was a piece of cake each time and they were were stable when I was transporting them.

The rack folds up very easily, and tilts down with bikes easily enough to work the lift gate on my Subaru Outback with bikes on the carrier (I did not try that with the e-bikes on it.) This new Outback has a back up camera - the view through that does get obstructed, and when bikes are on the carrier the blind spot detection radar also gets spoofed. Other than putting bikes on top, I guess that is life carrying bikes on these new fancy cars.

The rack includes a built in simple work stand arm that I haven't used, and integral "keep the honest people honest" cable locks that I have used for a lunch stop, which was fine - but I wouldn't depend on just those if I had to leave bikes on overnight.

From a usability point of view it is exactly what I wanted. The $650 list price for a two bike carrier is high even compared to the other platform type carriers but Kuat seems to address all of my worries about some of the other. The weight is another negative but all the sturdy platform carriers are beasts. By the end of the summer I'll have done three road trips totaling about 3000 miles on it and will have some longer term testing but based on shorter trips and the e-bike test, I'm very happy with it.

sputniky

My review of your review:

1. They are good racks.
2. Heavy is a personal thing, I believe that it's no big deal for normally-abled folks to install and remove the NV four bike version frequently, as I do.

jpescatore

The definition of heavy is definitely a personal thing - as anyone who has blown out discs in their back will tell you!

Personally, at 52 lbs the Kuat NV 2.0 is at the top of what I want to put on/take off single-handed. If I add the 40 lb add-on to be able to carry 4 bikes, that is above my personal limit.

Marcus_Ti

It is a nice bit of kit. I got mine for 20% off from Competitive Cyclist with a coupon code (and free shipping)....mine is an NV2 model without the workstand that is $80 cheaper to start. Only thing to really add... The Kuat, like AFAIK all shepard's crook style locking mechanism hitch racks...is warned against using with bikes that have fenders. Trying to is risky, as odds are the fender will deform before you get adequate force to hold the steering-axis secure. This isn't Kuat specific but is in the manual on all racks that work like this.

Bothrops

Good review. I purchased this rack last year and agree with all of your points. Although it is a little heavy it is rock solid.

Slightspeed

Several of our bike club members have these and like them. I drive a white Lexus Ct200h hatchback, and I saw a Kuat on a car like mine that either came in matching white or maybe he had it powder coated to match. Do they come in other colors than gray? I'm not really a rack guy, prefer my bike locked up inside the hatchback, but that limits me pretty much to carrying one bike. When I do SAG support for our charity ride I use a strap on Rhode Gear 2 bike rack, but it's pretty beat up, so I'm starting to think about hitch racks. Certain trunk mount racks make it difficult to hang a small frame or an oddly configured one like a mtn bike, too. I think the Kuat is a nice rack because it supports the rack ftom the wheels, but it is pricy.

Cyclist0108

I have the Sherpa 2.0. It is considerably lighter in weight (and on the wallet) but offers pretty much everything else, except the ability to carry a true fat-tire bike, and no work-stand. (It also has a single locking cable that does not retract into the rack.)


@Slightspeed This one also comes in white: