Trxstle Geryon Rack - Universal Bike Packing System

Video Transcript for Trxstle Geryon Rack Universal Bike Packing System Comprehensive Review

Hi everyone, Aidan here with etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at the Trxstle Geryon bike packing rack. This is gonna be a universal rack system to fit a variety of different bikes and give you platforms to attach accessories so you can get on all kinds of different adventures. Trxstle really markets the Geryon as a multi-sport product, and what I mean by that is that there's a lot of different use cases for it. There's plenty of different bike packing solutions out there and a lot of those solutions are tailor made for certain purposes, whether you're looking to just do some really long distance cross country biking or you just want to go fishing. I know when my wife and I took our road trip to Utah last summer, we saw a ton of people doing bike packing across the state from state park to state park and they had a bunch of bags that we inchesre fit perfectly for the inside of their bike frames and all around the different parts of the bike and that worked for them.

It allowed them to pack clothes and things like that, but this is going to be a bit more universal. We've got it set up right now for fishing. We've got our fly box up front, our fly rod broken down in the back, and a dry bag where you could say, put a change of clothes, some waiters, things like that, and plenty of room on the front to put more accessories or bags if we needed to. But you could very easily deck this out for say a solo camping trip. Put your small one person's sleeping bag and tent up front, carry some clothes on your back or you could kit this out for maybe some trail repair, strap a shovel to the back and some other small tools up front.

Really, however you plan on using this, it's going to be set up to accept those accessories and give you room to mount them. Regardless what you plan on carrying though, just make sure you keep it under the 30 pound weight capacity. That's 15 pounds for the front rack and 15 pounds for the back. If you plan on carrying anything heavier than that, you've always got the option to wear a backpack yourself and then you're bearing the weight of that. I wanna briefly talk about how this attaches and then we're gonna take this out for a ride and see how it impacts the performance of my bike.

You're gonna have attachment points at the front and rear, just under the handlebars here on the neck and just under the seat around the seat post here. If you've got a dropper post, it's not gonna impede the function of it. It clamps around just below that and they give you a number of different sleeves here that will adapt to various diameters that you might find commonly on your seat post or on the neck of your bike there. So so long as you've got pretty universally sized components, you should be able to find fitment here work just fine. We had no issues setting up my bike here today.

Now also it comes in two halves, so that front and rear clamp are going to join in the middle with these two tubes and they have the option to slide together or apart depending on how long your bike is. This is the one point about the bike or the rack that I'm a little weirded out by just because there's nothing really holding these two tubes together and there is some movement here, so I'm really curious to see how it performs whenever I get out and ride it. But the way this is all set up, like I said, it's not gonna impede the dropper post. It shouldn't impede my steering at all because that clamp does leave a good amount of room for movement, but the only thing I think is left to do is to actually test it out. So I'm gonna put a GoPro on and take it around the park here and try it out. (fly box rattling) Now as far as handling goes here, steering feels fine. My dropper post is working as it should. I do feel the fishing rod that I have mounted back there with the back of my leg as I pedal just a little bit. I shifted it back pretty far on purpose and then I do feel the dry bag that I have mounted on the back rack. But again, all things I kind of expected already. The thing I am pleasantly surprised about is the fact that it's not really in the way. It's not impeding my ability to bike, which is good. This section of the trail here isn't too bad, it's pretty flat, just kind of coasting along, but steering feels good. You know, my dropper post is working as it should, and we're getting minimal noise. Really, it's just our fly box up here that's rattling and I'm sure if I were permanently fixing this or this was part of my kit, I'd maybe put some foam padding there to reduce that vibration and rattle. But we're also just testing this out so we don't have any of that in place. That's one of those things you can kind of customize your own kit and figure out how you want to have it set up for your applications, you know, what you're using this rack for. (fly box rattling) The piece that I was worried about, the middle, where the two tubes come together, I'm not noticing any issues there. I do have a full suspension bike here, so as I'm riding around, that suspension is working, but it certainly doesn't feel like it's impeding it. I will say the rack here, I angled at both the front and the rear up a fair bit, especially that rear because if I am riding a trail where there's bigger drops and that suspension is working more, I don't wanna bottom out. (fly box rattling) So for our use case right now, it's working great. (fly box rattling) I think the biggest thing I'm taking away from this is that this really just opens up your world, right This is a lot easier to ride to a fishing spot with, ride to a hunting spot with, ride to your campsite, you can cover more ground with less energy and you can do it all faster so you spend more time doing the things you actually wanna be doing. (fly box rattling) And for me that's really important. I don't have a lot of time to go out and dedicate to riding my bike, camping, doing the things I like to do outside. I wish I had all the time in the world, but I don't. And a lot of times I have to make hard choices of sacrificing time to do one thing in order to do another. If I can do each activity a bit quicker, get to my destination faster, or combine hobbies, that's the perfect scenario for me because the moment you can combine those hobbies is the moment you can start doing them more. You don't have to make as many sacrifices with it. So for me, I really like this. I could see myself using something like this with my own bike here and really getting used to it, especially with a camping standpoint. You know, get a small sleeping bag, small tent, and then store some stuff in a backpack and I'll be on my way. This will be a really cool way to explore more spots. (fly box rattling) After riding this around for quite some time and testing it, I will say I have a pretty good feel for it, I think, and it performed a lot better than I expected it to. I thought, especially just with my size, that this would feel very much in the way when I was biking and it didn't. The points that I thought would have too much movement for my liking didn't. And the areas that maybe did make a little bit more noise, like their fly box here, I probably could have strapped down in a different way to make it not rattle so much. Or you might not have any accessory like that at all. If you're just doing small soft bags like this that aren't gonna create any rattling noises, then you probably won't notice anything. It didn't affect my steering and it didn't affect the dropper post or the full suspension, which I really liked. Overall, I think it's gonna just really add a lot to the bike and depending on how you're using it, it's gonna help you get on those adventures that you find yourself on. But with all that in mind, I do wanna take a bit closer look at some of the pieces that come included with this, like the cinch straps. You're gonna get four of these in total and on each of the platforms there's going to be four slots to choose from to feed them through. Now these out of the box are gonna be 12 inches long, so not the biggest. That's one gripe I do have. I wish these we inchesre longer, but they work great for some of Trxstle's accessories, like their fly box because they include a slot on that fly box for the strap to feed through and it just lines up perfectly. These also did work out pretty well for our fly rod just because I could wrap it around one and that small tube for that case just fit perfectly through the side at the back there. But for larger items like our dry bag, I did pick up Trxstle's longer straps, the six foot long ones, they come in a pair of two and those are gonna work great for those larger items like I mentioned. But they're still gonna have the same width as these included straps. So they'll feed through the slots on the platforms really well. Each platform will also have six threaded holes that are used to mount some of Trxstle's other accessories like their utility deck, that's gonna be a long horizontal piece that spans the front and allows you to carry something like a bow or any longer items like shovels and tools. You also get this small hole in the front that's not threaded, but it's rotatable and this would be a really cool spot I think for a GoPro if you just ran a bolt through there and secured it down. Each platform is adjustable in the angle you have it mounted at, so it's really customizable for your bike. The angles are gonna be controlled through bolts on the side here and by the platform here. Loosening those up will open these clamps. You can change the angle to your liking and when you tighten it back down, these teeth will clamp together and prevent it from rotating further. So our front platform is sticking out pretty straight right here because with my cables and handlebars, that worked out the best for me. And on the rear I did angle things up just a little bit more. Again, because I've got this full suspension bike, I don't want to be bottoming out if I hit a big drop or something like that and that suspension needs to flex. Realistically looking at this right now, I probably could have angled it up even more, but I didn't want the dry bag to get too in the way. Realistically, this is just one of the dry bags we had laying down in the shop. If I we inchesre actually going to be kitting this out, I'd consider picking up a dry bag that's a little bit smaller in diameter and just a bit longer because it can certainly stick out the back more. I just wouldn't want it to be so large or round. Even this tube in the middle, which isn't necessarily designed for mounting things to, can still be used to secure accessories. We've got just this small bike bag that's meant to wrap around your bike's frame, but since we've got a nice round tube here, that works just the same, so in a way it expands the cargo capacity of your bike in that area too, allowing you to mount just some more small bags that'd be out of the way. And with the aluminum construction, I think you're gonna find that this lasts quite a long time, especially not having to worry about rust and corrosion. With it being a more universal attachment, it's gonna work for a wide range of different bikes. So if you decide to upgrade or change bikes down the road, you can probably take the Geryon with you. And for me, I think that's one of the things that's just so appealing about this. It's gonna be in a lot of ways, pretty basic. You know, there's certainly options out there that we don't necessarily carry at etrailer that are super geared towards intense bike packers that are maybe doing cross country biking or are just doing one activity and they need the rack to be purpose-built for that one activity. There's certainly options out there and if that's what you're looking for, then explore those options. But the Geryon I think is going to lend itself really well to a wide range of activities. If you find yourself wanting to camp, fish or just to do some trail repair or combine all those activities together into one and be able to do all of them with your same kit, then the Geryon I think is a good way to do that because those platforms out the front and back really allow for a lot of creative mounting for accessories and bags and tools. So however you plan on using the Geryon rack, I think it's gonna be a really great addition to your bike. If you decide that this is the right option for you, leave a review, show us your setup and let us know what you think. But again, my name's Aidan here with etrailer and thank you for watching.