Thule Passage 2 Trunk Mounted Bike Rack Review

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Review of a Thule Passage 2 Trunk Mounted Bike Rack

Today we are going to show you part number TH910, the Passage 2 from Thule. This is a 2 Bike Trunk Mounted Bike Rack Carrier. It goes on the back of your vehicle it does not require a trailer hitch or anything. It usually installs onto the deck lid of your trunk. One of the nice features about this bicycle rack is it can adjust to virtually any shape of car or SUV. This is where you make your adjustments, depending on the type of vehicle you have. You simply just unscrew this, and you have one on each side. It is basically just like a little bolt with a handle on the end. And you can take this and adjust the bicycle rack to whatever shape you need. Again, the rack comes with instructions on how to adjust it for your particular model. On ours we will use number 6. And also for storage, the arms will actually rotate and fold out of the way, too. And that is easily done by pushing in two buttons. And there will be a button here and there is one on the opposite side. Just squeeze them together, and you can see they rotate out of the way.

To install it, first off you want to start off with the trunk open, as we have here. And there are six straps. And it looks kind of complicated but it is really not. Basically you start from the top and work your way down. You take your top straps ,and they typically catch on the edge of your trunk by your glass of course. And that is typical on most models. And that kind of holds the rack in position for you. Just a point: you might want to take a second and center it on the vehicle. The next straps you want to work with are the side straps, here. And they will catch onto this portion of the trunk right here. And that is where you have to get into the trunk and open it up. So you want to open it up just a little bit and catch the edge however you can. Do that on both sides, and try to get some tension with them. And then you can go ahead and just shut your hatch as normal.

OK, once you have those set, then you can go to the straps that go down to the bottom, you can go ahead and strap those into place. Now, these straps vary. Sometimes they will catch underneath the trunk, here. Or, in this case, the instructions recommend actually going down behind the bumper, and there are two loops underneath by the frame that you can actually hook up into. And once you have your straps in their positions, again, take a second to make sure you have it straight on the vehicle and basically just start tightening up your straps from there. Basically, again, just start from the top and work your way down. Now, one thing you do want to aim for is having the padding kind of resting between the trunk and the bumper, if possible. Now we will go to the side straps, here. And the side straps will actually tighten up these bottom straps, here, too. And then a couple of tugs on each side just to make sure you have kind of an even torque on them, and then go back up to the top straps and just make sure they are good and tight.

Once you have your bicycle rack strapped into place, go ahead and take a few seconds to tie up your loose ends. What seems to work is just roll it up as tight as possible and you actually can tuck it into this area right here, underneath this track where the hinge is. You can do this in any fashion you like, but this actually seems to work pretty good. And then the other strap, here, we actually took the loose ends and just tucked it back through this angle right here. And just that little bit will not hurt anything.

All right, let us go ahead and install a bicycle and give you an idea of how it fits onto the rack. Always start with your heaviest bike toward the back of the vehicle, and the lighter ones of course to the outside. As you can see, it did not take very long to strap on the bike. And again, that is because the cradle is right here. It is pretty nice. First off, you have got the rubber strap that you can stretch to fit virtually any type of frame. Pretty easy to use catches on right here. And the cradle itself is a type of rubber material and itself has these stiffened grooves inside there. And that gives you a place for the cables to go so they do not get smashed up against your frame. The cradles also do rotate left and right and front to rear to accommodate different bicycles different combinations of handlebars and seats, so they do not run into each other. And there you have it for part number TH910 from Thule, the Passage 2.