Malone RunWay 2-Bike Platform Rack - 1-1/4" and 2" Hitches - Tilting

Video Transcript for Malone RunWay 2-Bike Platform Rack Review

Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at the Malone Runway HM2. Now, this is a two bike platform style rack. It's designed to work with an inch and a quarter or with two inch hitches. The part number on it is MPG2149.Now, we've had a lot of time to go over the bike rack. We've put it out there, our test course had several different types of bike on it to see how it does, and overall it offers some good features at a pretty economical price.Now, a few of the things that we like, that we think kind of set this bike rack apart from other bike racks that are in the same general price range, would be one: The tilt away feature. It's going to allow you to tilt it with one or two bikes loaded up away from your vehicle giving you access to the hatch.

It's also going to have a lock incorporated to our top frame hook, which allows us to secure both of our bikes down and to the platform so we won't have to worry about those disappearing.Now, to tilt the rack away we're going to come to the mast. This is the mast, it's going to be underneath supporting our bikes, and we'll see we have a pin and clip here. Generally, you'll have to raise slightly on this center mast to remove that pin, but then you see it's going to tilt away pretty nicely. We just need to slide it out towards us, and allow that to tilt down. It comes down at a really good angle, as you can see.

It really gets the bikes quite aways from the rear of the vehicle, and that should give you more than enough room. This is a pretty big pedal here, fairly wide handlebar set, and, as you can see, plenty of space there. And then, of course, the walkway here should be adequate for you to get in there and get the stuff in or out you might need.And to return it upright, of course, we're going to need to tilt this back up. And if you watch right here you'll kind of see what we're talking about. We need to slide this in towards the vehicle that's going to line up our pinhole here, so we can put our pin and clip back in place.So, the basic idea with our locking knob is, that you can see at this point it's engaged, we can loosen this up and that allows us to move our hook up and down.

So, once we have our other bike loaded we're going to tighten this down, or even if you just want to carry one bike we'll tighten that knob down. And the key disengages it, so now it just spins freely. There's no way for us to loosen this up allowing us to raise the hooks and remove the bikes.Now, with that being said I do think it has a slight weakness in it. Say you had two different sized bikes, this one has a lower upper frame portion, and the one you had in the back has a higher frame portion, well, in that case this hook is going to be up higher. So, if this hook we're here, you're still going to be able to adjust this knob slightly.

So, you can loosen this, bring that up, and at a point we'd be able to get that bike off there. So, while I think it's going to do a really good job of keeping honest people honest, and not leaving this open for a very easy opportunity, even with the lock in place if somebody really wanted to get to that bike, if they we're of different heights, they might be able to do it.Now, with this design our bikes are essentially held in place with three connection points. We've got our front, and our rear wheel hoop here, those are going to have straps on them just for a little bit additional protection, and then we've got our frame hook. Now, this is going to be a steel hook with a foam pad on it. We'll just bring that down so that it makes good contact with our tube, that foam is going to prevent any scratching or damage to our bike, and then we'll secure our knob to hold it in place.Now, as far as the loading and unloading process go there's really not much of a difference between this one and other platform racks of this style. We got a wheel strap there, and, again, these are just offering a little bit of added security. We've got our main hook, this is what's doing the majority of the work. We want to loosen this, going to raise that up, get it out of the way, and you see I've already got that rear hook up and out of the way, and we're just going to slide it off.Putting it on kind of going to be the reverse of that process. We'll have to set it in behind that center mast. That's the biggest challenge with this type of rack, I feel like. With this center mast you either have to go in from one side or the other, if you we're tall enough you could lift it up and over. At that point we're going to bring our hook down, make sure we've got good contact there with the frame, tighten our knob, and then we can secure each of our straps.Now, we found the best way to do that is to just wrap the strap around one side, we're going to bring it down around the other side of our hoop, and just bring it back just like that. And, of course, you want to do that not only in the front but also at the rear. And you see these are adjustable forward and back, I like that, that's going to allow us to get it in an appropriate spot on our rims. So, they'll go between the spokes.Now, when it's time to load the second bike you want it to be opposite of your first bike. This bike you can put on whichever direction you want it to face. The second one you want it to be opposite. It's just going to give us more room for handlebar clearance. Move our pedals, so they're not hitting that center mast. We'll just bring our hook down, get it secured, and then head to those wheel straps get those secure.Now, something you want to keep in mind when loading your bikes you want the heavier bike to be closer to the vehicle, your lighter bike should be further away.Now, generally in this configuration you're going to have good spacing for bikes. As you can see the handlebar kind of overhangs the seat in this situation, both sets of pedals here, we've got good room between the bikes. Not really worried about any interference there. And the handlebar that we have here is making a little bit of contact with our seat, if that was a concern for you, remember, we have those adjustable cradles that'll go in and out, so we can kind of change that positioning.Now, a measurement that's going to be helpful in determining whether this is a rack that's going to work out for your needs, your parking situations, and things like will be from the center of our hitch pinhole to the outer most edge of our rack here. Basically, what we're looking at is about 30 and three quarters of an inch. Then from the center of our hitch pinhole to the closest point of our rack is going to be about eight and a quarter from here to this upright.Another thing about the rack that will be pretty convenient and helpful is the fact that we can fold this up against the rear of the vehicle not only do we have the tilt away feature. So, we've got a pin and clip right down here that we're going to pull. Once that's pulled we can rotate our mast down; then we'll just replace our pin to keep it there. Then the same pin that we used to tilt away we want to remove. You can see that's just going to rotate. We'll pull out on it, rotate it up, and then we push it downward to get our holes to line up. With those in line we can slide our pin and clip in, and clip it into place. That's going to take up considerably less room on the back of our vehicle. Can make it much easier to park in tighter spaces. Looks like that's going to be down to about 14 and a quarter inches.Now, something that adds to the versatility of the rack you see we've got the inch and a quarter shank here; that'll go directly into a class one or two hitch. Then with our additional spacer we can bring that up to a class three, four, or five that has the two inch by two inch receiver tube opening.To help keep movement of the rack to a minimum we've got our anti-rattle bolt here. They're going to provide the bolt, the lock washer, and flat washer. Just back that off to give you an idea. You can see with that bolt loose there's a lot of movement, and a lot of play in the rack, but as soon as we tighten that back up we're going to get rid of most, if not all, of it. To tighten this down you'll want to use a 19 millimeter, or three quarter inch wrench or socket.Now, to accommodate for the different wheel basis we've got a very simple process here of adjusting our cradles. See it's simply going to be loosening the knob that we have here on top. See, that's nice and secure. Simply loosen that up; it's going to give you plenty of adjustment room. Now, the racks been designed to work with tires up to three and a half inches, but keep in mind any tire over two and a five eights will sit on top of the hoop rather than down and in.Now, the racks designed to hold bikes of a wheel base up to 58 inches, so that should work out for most bikes out there with the exception of tandems and recumbents.Here on our test course we'll start by going through slalom. This is going to show us the side to side action. This simulates turning corners, or evasively maneuvering.Once we get to the alternating speed bumps we'll see the twisting action. This will simulate hitting a curb, or pothole, or driving over uneven pavement.Once we get to the full speed bump we'll see the up and down action. This will be just like driving in and out of a parking lot, parking garage, or driveway.Now, in comparing this rack to other racks that we have available I think the most similar racks that we're going to find are going to be either the XC2 or XTC2 from Swagman. Now, I feel like those racks do a little better job as far as the hooks on the top coming down on the frame. They have more of a ratcheting mechanism, where with the Malone we have to deal with the knobs. Although, keep in mind, the Malone does have the locks included, whereas with the Swagman you have to provide your own. As far as the tilt away feature we don't see that on either of the Swagman models, so if that's something important to you this might really stand out for you.And that's going to complete our look at the Malone Runway HM2 part number MPG2149.