etrailer | Comparison of the Hollywood Destination and the Yakima On Ramp E-Bike Racks

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So if you wanna carry around some heavy electric bikes you might have noticed that electric bikes seem to be getting heavier and heavier which also makes it trickier and trickier to get them onto your rack and off of it. So we've noticed that different brands have different solutions to making this an easier process for you. A common solution is to add ramps. So we have two bike racks here that have ramps included with them. There's the Yakima OnRamp as well as the Hollywood Racks Destination E bike rack and they do a lot of things similarly. You have the same features but they also do things differently and we're gonna explore those features.
Hopefully this video will help you see, understand the different bike racks, understand ramps more and then make the decision for what fits your lifestyle, your vehicle, and your bikes best. Both of the bike racks are designed for your heavy electric bikes which means that they have some features in common. One of them is gonna be that heavy E-bike weight capacity. The Yakima OnRamp has a 66 pound per bike weight capacity while the Hollywood Racks Destination E has a 70 pound per bike weight capacity. Both of them are frame mounted which means they hold onto your bike by the frame.
Plus they both have straps for your wheels to add that extra support. They also have the ability to fold up and tilt away. But before we get into a deep dive on those features let's talk about the most important thing they have in common, which is they have ramps. When carrying around electric bikes, there's two very important things you need to figure out first. The first is how heavy is your bike Get that weight especially the weight when the battery is off.
And then also figure out things like your tire size and the wheelbase. You want the heaviest bike closest to the vehicle. And the second thing is back to that battery. If you do take that off you can store it inside of your vehicle. That will also help preserve the battery's life because then it doesn't have to go through that extra road vibrations and movement when it's on your bike rack.
So with all that figured out, let's get it on. First off, the Yakima OnRamp. This has a 51 inch long ramp, and what sets this apart from the other rack is that this can go on both sides. So sometimes you don't get to choose where you park your vehicle and maybe there's another vehicle really close on the other side. You can move this over to our driver's side and it fits in to the tray and comes down. Now with this being a 51 inch long ramp that can also change your experience depending on your ground clearance of your vehicle's hitch receiver and where you are parked. Getting this onto the OnRamp, we have a narrow tire honestly. It's 2.10 inches wide but even then it's a tight fit on our ramp. If I had maybe 3.25 inch wide tires I'd just go on top of it, being careful to make sure that it stays on track front and rear wheel. And also that we're dodging the handlebars up front. There we go, and getting it into position. So that was a relatively smooth process. Let's take it over to the Destination to see the difference. The Destination E has a telescoping ramp that has a maximum length of 46 inches so it is shorter than Yakima OnRamp. Another main difference is that this can only go on one side, which is where the rear tire sits. So driver's side for this far cradle, passenger side for the close cradle. Now there is a workaround for that though because no matter which side I put it on I can still load two bikes on that way. For this ramp, the maximum tire width is gonna be up to 4.5 inches wide and already you can see the major difference with this getting loaded onto the ramp. So easy, not narrow at all. If I was loading the bike up onto the other side I'd just do a quick hop over to the other cradle. Here, we're just gonna go straight through dodging the handlebars much more easily this time making sure we stay on track and getting it up and in. That worked out pretty well too. While both ramps we're helpful for getting a heavy electric bike onto the rack because I didn't have to lift that heavy rear hub there are some differences to 'em too. I personally like the Destinati

[@PeterDavies-ue4ix]

This is the most detailed and useful analysis of ebike ramps that I have seen. Well done.

[@etrailer]

Thank you very much, we're glad you liked it!

[@ericpanda]

What about destination vs Thule epos with the add-on ramp?

[@etrailer]

At the time we shot the video, the Thule Epos wasn't available yet. We'll get with our video folks and ask for a comparison video that includes the Thule Epos!