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

Video Transcript for Malone Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2015 Lexus RX 350

Speaker 1: Today on our 2015 Lexus RX350, we're going to be taking a look at the Malone Runway two bike platform rack. That's going to be part number NPG2149. As you can see, we do have a bike installed, so let's take a closer look and show off some of these features. You're going to have these nice wheel trays for both wheels of your bike. They can adjust side to side on the rack to meet different bike lengths you might have. You simply loosen that hand knob.

You can slide it to whatever length you might need for your bike. Once you tighten that down, it'll be stationary.Each wheel tray is going to come with a hook and loop strap to secure your bike wheel into the tray. That's going to be two points of contact we have our bike secured. Our third point is going to be up here, with this padded frame hook. That's going to secure the top of our frame tighter into the wheel trays.

Now, the rubber padding right here is going to help protect the frame of your bike from any type of scratches or abrasions while you're installing it.If we look right here on our top frame hook, we're going to see it has a lock right here. Now, what you can do is if you want to secure, when you only have one bike installed ad you want to secure it, you can loosen it up, we can slide this down on top of our front frame hook, tighten that up. Once we lock that, as you see, the wheel kinda gets off its thread so you can't loosen it or tighten it anymore, so it's going to be secure. It's going to secure your bike to your bike rack so no one can take it off without having the key.You're going to stick the key back in. Once you unlock it, that's going to put the hand knob back on the threads.

Then, you can loosen it. We can lift it up like so. We'll just tighten it back right here. Now we can remove our bike.Before we remove our bike, I would like to show you guys the nice tilt-away feature that comes with this platform tower rack. We're going to remove this pin and clip first.

Once we do that, I'm going to grab it by the arm and by the frame. We're going to pull back just a bit, and now it can tilt away. It can tilt away with both bikes loaded. And now, we can go ahead, open up our hatch. It's not going to make any contact with our bike. We can slide right into here, get whatever cargo or gear we might need, and then close it right up.Once it's fully close, we can go ahead, tilt it back up. We're going to push it in just a little bit so it hooks on there. Then, you would always want to replace your pin and clip. However, right now we're just going to leave it so I can show you guys another feature later.Now, we can go ahead and remove our bike. I'll show you guys how to do that. We're going to start by removing our hook and loop straps. We'll just strap those on one part of the tray so we don't lose them. Now, when we come to our frame hook, you do want to make sure you have a good grip on the frame of your bike 'cause once we release that hook, it is going to make the bike be able to fall toward your vehicle and potentially damage it, which is something we don't want. When we do that, as you can see, the bike can move freely. We're going to lift the frame hook off while holding onto our bike, and tighten that right there. And now we can remove the bike.I would like to provide you guys a few measurements to give you an idea of the space this bike rack might take up. Now first, I'm going to measure from the back of our bumper to the outermost part of our bike rack. We're going to see that we're adding on about 27 inches to the back of our vehicle. As far as ground clearance, we're going to see, thanks to our raised shank, that we have 24 inches of ground clearance, which is plenty of space for any of those steep inclines you might be climbing up. Then if we measure from the innermost part of our bike rack to the bumper, we're going to have about five and a half inches of space right there.Now, this bike rack can tilt up to your vehicle to conserve some space, but first we want to fold down our frame hook. We're going to remove this pin and clip right here. Our frame hooks can fold down, and we'll replace the pin and clip right there. Once we do that, you would normally remove this pin and clip, however, like I said, I kept it removed so I could show you this feature. We're just going to fold it right up like so. First, you got to pull it out, and then you can do that. Then, you can replace the pin and clip. There we go.Now, you kinda conserve some of that space. I'll give you a measurement, and again show you the space we have. From the bumper to he outermost part is going to be about 12 inches right there, which is a pretty big difference from when we had the platform folded down. So you do want to keep this in mind for any close quarter situations you might have, such as parking or storage.Now, if we come down here and we look at how our bike rack's connected to our hitch, we're going to see we have a two inch receiver. However, if you wish to convert it to an inch and a quarter shank, you simply remove this adapter we have on there, and that makes it compatible with inch and a quarter receivers.We have an anti-rattle bolt on this side over here that just comes to the other side. Once we tighten that down, that's going to prevent our bike rack from shaking at all while we're traveling. If you wish, you can purchase an anti-rattle bolt with a lock if you want to have a more secure feature to your bike rack so no one can remove your bike rack from your vehicle while it's installed unless they have the key.And there you have it, for the Malone Runway two bike platform rack on our 2015 Lexus RX350. Speaker 2: Here on our test course, we'll start by going through the 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 a pothole, or diving over uneven pavement.Once we get to the full speed bumps, 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.