Video Transcript for Saris Tailgate Pad In-Depth Review

If you're planning on just tossing all of your bikes into your truck bed, stacked on top of each other, you don't have to do that anymore when you get the right tailgate pad. So today, we're gonna be talking about the Saris Tailgate Pad, where you can carry up to five or six bikes in your truck on your tailgate. Now it's a very straightforward solution to preventing scratching up your truck and scratching up your bikes. So we're gonna talk about some of the different features and things to think about. So if you have a full-size truck like this, go ahead and get the large size, which can carry up to six bikes. If you have a mid-size or a compact truck, check out the small version instead, which will fit better on your tailgate and you can carry up to five bikes.

We tried it on a compact truck like a Ford Maverick, so we have those videos here on our site too, if you have any questions about those. The way this works is you lift the bike up and into the truck bed, leaving the front wheel up over the tailgate, and the rest of the bike inside of the bed. What I like to do is, when my friends are loading up their bikes in the truck bed, I stay inside and they just hand the bikes to me, and I toss them over and strap them down. The strap just goes over the bike frame and secures into the loops in the tailgate pad. You have this metal buckle where you can just pull the strap and it tightens everything down.

And that's it. If you're carrying five or six bikes, the last thing you wanna do is hassle a lot with tying them down. Now, when you have multiple bikes loaded up together, they're gonna wedge against each other, minimizing the movement. Now I say that, but let's go take a look here on our test course and see how it goes. The main thing I wanted to see was the movement of the bike.

So we went over the speed bumps here at etrailer, and it really didn't do much. We went over the alternating bumps, as if we we inchesre hitting a curb or hitting a pothole, we also went over the normal speed bumps, up and down, and I didn't see much movement from the bikes, and that's a good thing. Now, this is not gonna be the same as if you we inchesre off-roading, rock crawling, some more extreme speeds and movements, but, all in all, if you're just carrying trying to get to the trail, this is gonna be a great way to do so. Without the bikes on, this is what the tailgate pad looks like. It is secured around the tailgate with four straps.

Some people just leave this on their truck, that's fine. It's designed to hold up to the elements as well as protect your truck from scratches. You have two different materials at play here. On top, you have this very durable, almost vinyl, banner material. You can see the dirt and mud from the bikes just staying on the pad. Now underneath, you have this very soft material, and this is what's making contact with your truck finish. So we have a little bit of dirt on our truck, and the tailgate pad sits over there, and I don't see that dirt being disturbed, which speaks a lot to how smooth and friction-free this is. If you're driving around without the bikes, I do recommend flipping the flap over. So this is secured with this little buckle. We're just gonna turn that over, and then this will reveal our backup camera and our tailgate buttons. This is also a good way to see that material underneath the tailgate pad. You're gonna secure this flap behind the tailgate with its own buckle. Inside the truck bed, you can see where all the straps are. I like to just tuck the straps away, so they're not flapping around as you drive around. You see the hard foam that's supporting your bike and the frame, and you see two pockets. So these are gonna be small netted pockets. If you just have a person that likes to bring riding gloves, or compact pumps, or little bike tools, this is a good spot to put them. So I get it, people toss their bikes into their truck bed because they have a truck, they're used to just throwing things in there and using that storage area, or maybe you don't have a hitch receiver, or you have something in the hitch like a ball mount because you want to tow. But you don't have to stack your bikes up on top of each other, you can have them all nice and neat on a tailgate pad. Your bikes are safer, your truck is safer that way too, and you don't really lose out on the functions of your truck. You can still use your tailgate like a tailgate, toss things into the truck bed. With that flap over, you have that full visibility through your backup camera, use of your handle. And this really is just four-straps tightened down, you just feed the straps underneath the tailgate, secure it, and now your tailgate pad is on there. And if you feel like you would rather see more of your truck, very easy to take it right back off. So with that being said, if you are looking to carry around multiple bikes without spending a lot of money, this is gonna be a great way to start. If you are looking for options though to carry up to six bikes, we do have some vertical hitch racks that you may be interested, if you wanna get access back in your truck bed. So it's really more of a matter of what are you looking for What types of adventures are you going on More likely than not, we have the solution for you. I've been working with tailgate pads for years now, and they're straightforward, they carry around bikes. It's when you start putting them on different trucks that it gets really interesting. My favorite story is definitely when I put this on a Ford Maverick. It's a compact truck, really short bed, but we we inchesre able to just see how bikes could fit on there. The tailgate pad fit almost perfectly, it sat right above the backup camera, so you had full visibility through that camera, even with the pad on there. That was really cool. If you have cool stories like that, maybe you're tired of tossing your bikes in your bed, and now you have a nice, orderly set up to get to the trail, I'd love to see it. Send us pictures here at etrailer and maybe you can inspire other people too to get their bikes in a much safer and more secure spot on their truck. But, today, what you saw was the Saris Tailgate Pads, again, available in size small, as well as size large, right here at etrailer. My name's Evangeline, I hope you enjoyed this journey.