Today were going to review par t number Y02624 from Yakima. This is our KingJoe Pro Bicycle Rack. Okay, to start off our review, were going to cover some of the features and parts of this bicycle rack.At the very end of the cradles is a red piece which is a bottle opener which comes handy at the end of the ride. And the next well move on to the cradles. Now theres two sets of cradles on that rack that will only hold to your bikes and those sets of cradles do have anti-sway cradles built into them. The straps go to the top of the cradle and for the anti-sway cradle as well.
And the cradle itself is smooth on the inside. The anti-sway part of the cradle also sways from the inside to outside depending on the type of geometry on your bicycle.Next, well go ahead and look at the levers that adjust the arms to that hold the bicycle. Theyre very easy to use. You pull out on the level until it goes 90 degrees and then you can adjust the arms to desired location and then push them back together. On the other side of the levers are knobs that you can use to adjust the bicycle rack to fit the form of your car.
Very easy to use you pull them apart and give it a slight twist then you can adjust the bike rack. To lock it back up, turn the knob back to its original spot and give the bicycle rack a little bit of pull to make sure that the knob snap in and engage.Next well go on to the straps that hold the bike rack to this vehicle. Now theyre all labeled top, side and bottom. So its very easy to identify the locations of each one. Now the hooks that attach to the car all have a protective covering and also the straps have loop inside to keep the excess strap from lying around and the buckles themselves have a protective coating around them to help keep them bouncing off the car and potentially scratching the finish.Now well move on to the pads that touch the car.
Youll notice that they are soft and pliable; however, you want to keep these pads clean as well as your car clean to keep anything like dirt and dust to get in between the pad and the car to keep it from being scratched up. So light coat of wax and a good clean before you install the bicycle rack is essential.Okay, at this point, we can go ahead and install the bike rack on the car. Before we do that, well go ahead and adjust the bicycle rack according to the instructions. Now well have to measure from rivet to rivet to put it in the right spot. First well unlock the latches and adjust the bars and then relock them.
Now lets go by the instructions how in this case well be working with a measurement of 20 inches. Well go head and put the bike rack into its proper spot according to the instructions. You want to make sure that the pad is sitting on the strongest part of the sheet metal. In this case, were going to have the bottom pad as pretty close to the license plate as possible and the top pad is going to be pretty close to the front edge of the trunk so we should be okay with that as well. And well start off by facing the hooks on top of the front hood; well attach those and then sit the bike rack into place. Well make sure its centered and then well go ahead and move on to the bottom straps and the side straps. After that, well go ahead and secure our excess straps. Alright, now we can go ahead and raise the arms from the bicycle cradles. Well pull open the red levers on the inside and raise them until we have it on a slight angle up then well lock them back in place and then we can go ahead and load up a bike. When we load up a bike, well go ahead and make sure that the straps are out of the way for the cradles were going to use. Well rotate the anti-sway part of the cradles towards the inside, it makes it a little bit easier to load up the bikes. You want to place the bike into the cradles; well go ahead and balance it out on the cradles then well strap down the seat tube to the anti-sway part of the cradle then well run the other strap over the top tube of the bike. And those are all the steps you need to load up bike. The bicycle rack does come with a couple of other straps. One strap is to help keep the handlebars straight on the bike so well wrap that around the wheel and the frame; however, an extra long strap all go around the bicycle rack and the frames of the bikes to act as a safety strap.Now one of the other accessories that come with this bicycle rack is that it has the glass hatch adapter. For vehicles with a glass hatch, this will fit between the glass and the body work of the vehicle. Now if a vehicle does not have a glass hatch, we can still demonstrate how it works. Well take it and drop it behind the trunk hatch, lower it on the inside, make sure its all the way in the end then we go ahead and shut the hatch and pull it tight. Thatll finish it for our review of part number Y02624, the Yakima King Joe Pro.
