Video Transcript for Yakima Truck Bed Bike Racks Review - 2022 Nissan Frontier

Hey, it's Ethan here at etrailer. Today we're gonna be taking a look at the Yakima Gatekeeper Five Bike Tailgate Pad. Now it fits on our 2022 Nissan Frontier. So with our Frontier, we don't actually have a hitch on it so we can't get any hitch bike racks unless we install a hitch. So this might be the next best solution to get five bikes where we need them to go. It's just going to install right on our tailgate here and it turns your bed into a bike rack essentially.

Let's check it out. On the back of the pad here, we can see how the bikes are being held just by the frame here using these pads and straps. So there's gonna be a little bit of side to side movement depending on how tight you can get that strap. It's kind of just how the tailgate pads are gonna go. If we take a closer look at this one here you'd see how thick that padding is.

It's really nice and really supportive, but still we wouldn't recommend using a carbon frame bike. It's because it could potentially damage our frame while you're driving. The straps have a pad on them as well so the frame is gonna be pretty well protected but still be wary about using carbon frame. While we're back here, we can talk about how we install the tailgate pad. So we have these three straps with these nylon strips running along the end of them.

So you're gonna open the tailgate just a little bit, feed those under and through and then we'll tighten them up with these buckles here. So honestly, with this truck, there's a good amount of room and they weren't too tough to install and the fact that these are so rigid here helps us feed them through and pull them up on the end. If we come down over here, we can see that we do also have this built-in grommet for a cable lock if we wanna secure all our bikes through that cable lock and then feed that here and around itself. It's just gonna be another layer of security. On the tailgate here you can see that we don't have the largest truck in the world but I still wouldn't mind just a little bit more coverage.

That being said, the forks of our bike are still protected against our tailgate by the pad, so depending on how many bikes you choose to load up here that could be a little bit complicated. That's one of the drawbacks of using a tailgate pad like this is that you're gonna be really hard pressed to avoid any sort of bike to bike contact especially if you wanna load it up with five bikes. From here though, we can get the bike removed starting by just loosening the strap up a little bit depending on how tight you got it. The hook's gonna be a little tough to get out. Also, depending on how heavy the bike is that you're choosing to use, that could also be pretty tough to lift up and over the tailgate, which again is just sort of one of the downsides of using a tailgate pad like this. But our bike here isn't too bad, so I'm just gonna grab it, lift it up and over, and that's how you get your bike off. With the bike removed, we can take a closer look now at this flap here, so we open that up. That's how we get to our tailgate, so we access it and also our backup camera is now gonna be visible. It's got a hook and loop strap as well as two buttons. One thing I will say is that I wish it had some sort of buckle or something on the top here so that I could latch it on the backside. That's once I fold it over, it just kind of kind of hangs there and it's gonna be bouncing around. Also on the inside you can see the material that we're going to be dealing with. Just a nice soft felt. That's what the entire thing is gonna be made of. This is just the easiest way to point it out. It's gonna do a great job of protecting the paint and our tailgate in general once this is folded down in his position. The pad is made of nylon, so it's going to be abrasion and weather resistant as well as UV ray resistant. So should hold up to a good amount of use weather, wear a tear over time. Also, in our case, you can see we have the blue model and it's got this nice little mountain design on it so it looks pretty cool at the same time, so it should last for a while and it also looks nice. Overall if you're looking for an entry level way to get five bikes where you need them to go especially in our case where we don't have a hitch and we need to get that many bikes where we need to go, Tailgate Pad is gonna be one of the only options that you have. It's really easy to install, take off when you're not using it. It's probably gonna be a little bit of bike to bike contact and it could prove to be a little bit difficult to actually get up to five bikes on there. But in the case of our Nissan Frontier here I think it's still a really solid choice. This was just a quick look at the Yakima Gatekeeper Five Bike Tailgate Pad and how it fit on our 2022 Nissan Frontier.