etrailer | Thule DoubleTrack Pro XT 2 Bike Rack Review

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What's up everybody It's AJ with etrailer.com. Today, we're gonna be checking out the Thule Doubletrack Pro XT. It's gonna be a platform style bike rack. It's gonna hold the bikes by the frame. It's gonna be a very good choice to transport your two bikes, holds them nice and steady. Let's check it out.
We're out in the parking lot, we through the GoPro on the back of the vehicle just to see how the bike rack is gonna handle. So we're gonna go over some bumps first on our bumps course, just to watch and see how much it moves back and forth Inside there is some side to side movement. That's pretty normal for bike racks, but the important part is that the bikes themselves aren't moving or wiggling in place, they're staying put. So that's a good thing. Those hooks come down on there pretty tight though on that frame so I don't think it will be moving whatsoever.
All right, now we're in a different part of the parking lot where I can go a little bit faster just to keep an eye on it and I'll listen and see if you can hear it back there if there is any rattling or anything. I don't hear anything. I don't see anything that makes me not trust the bike rack either. So now we're coming to a different portion of our parking lot where we can go a little bit faster and do sharp turns. So we're gonna do that here.
There's some decently aggressive turns in the bike rack which is fine. Bikes, no movement, so I think it should be good. Platform style bike racks usually fit in two different categories. The ones that make frame contact, and there's the ones that don't and usually, the hook comes down on the wheel. So this one clearly touches the frame.
So this one wouldn't be so good for carbon fiber bikes. This one's better for the aluminum road bike, mountain bikes, any of the other frame types would be just fine with this. So if you do have a carbon fiber bike, I would recommend looking at one that holds it by the wheel instead, that way you don't damage that frame. So then now what's gonna be a little tricky is it an alternative frame bikes, especially with the frame mounts, those hooks gotta go down on those weird frames that come all the way down here, and have to go down. They will still work, you get adapter bar and put that between there and that way the bar is up here and the hook will go on there. But it just might be something else that you run into if you have alternative frame bikes. It might be better to just to go with the wheel Mount, that way the frame is not an issue. How the Doubletrack works is, it's gonna have these hooks that push down on the frame of your bike. They are padded, so you don't have to worry about it scratching or damaging anything, but it's gonna push the bike down into the cradles at the bottom, and there's straps there also that you can strap this down to hold it in place. I like that. It's better than some of the other ones. Sometimes you get just loops down here that the tire sits in and it's just a loop. So yeah, it works but I really like these cradles better because as you can see, the road bike tire goes here in the center and there's actually a cut out for it. And you can see maybe the little indention here for a slightly bigger tire. And that should be like mountain bike tire if you look at that one over there. And then the cradle is still big enough to fit a fat tire bike in there and the straps are also long enough at that same time. So right out of the box, you can use those three different types of bikes, and that's not always common for these bike racks. Sometimes you have to buy extra accessories. So like a whole nother cradle or a longer strap and that's just an extra thing you have to get. I like that it's all included here and ready to go out of the box. One minor complaint I do have is that the mask has both hooks on the same one. So what problem you're gonna run into is there are bikes that are similar heights, you can't do much adjusting. You can see how these can only move here. Like I can only push this one down so much before it runs into the bottom hook, and that's just, if they're that similar in height, you're not gonna have that adjustment. Now there's like a little ways around it. We moved one because of the wheelbase, you can't move those. We went to like a lower end of this one so that made connections. Same here, we got it to work, but maybe a bike adapter bar would be something else that would help you out if it's that close, maybe that'd be higher up. You can get that one down on there and not have th