Saris CycleOn Bike Rack for 2 Bikes w/ Ramp - 1-1/4" and 2" Hitches

Video Transcript for Saris CycleOn Bike Rack for 2 Bikes w/ Ramp Review - 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 - SAR36XR

Hi, everyone. I'm Evangeline right here at etrailer. Since every bike rack fits every vehicle differently, today we're focusing in on how the Saris CycleOn bike rack fits on our 2021 Chevrolet Silverado. Now this bike rack is a very versatile rack, has a high weight capacity, can carry heavy electric bikes up to 70 pounds, but most importantly with our truck here, it has a fantastic tilt-away. To tilt it, you just press down on that lever at the end and just bring the rack down to a tilt. It goes all the way back here where we can lower our tailgate with no issues, hands-free, let it drop, plenty of space.

Even underneath the tailgate, you can see there's so much clearance. So if you need to grab heavy items out of your tailgate, maybe a cooler or you're standing in here and having a tailgate drop down a little bit, no worries at all about making contact with your bike rack. That's probably the most impressive part about how this fits specifically with this truck. So if I was to grab like just chairs, things like that, I can do so, (tailgate thuds) then I can bring our tailgate back up, and then I can just push up on this rack. (bike rack clicks) It snaps into place and now we are ready to drive.

So phenomenal fit here on this truck. Now let's talk about the bike on here. This can carry up to two bikes, even if both of them are 70 pounds each, you are set. You have three touch points here. One and two are gonna be the wheel straps, and then you have a mostly frame mount where this can secure on different points on the bike, depending on what is the best fit for you, especially when you get multiple bikes on there can be a little tricky.

Now here inside our truck bed, I have stored our ramp. This ramp is included with the bike rack and makes loading and unloading super easy. Now I'll show you a closeup here where this attaches to on the rack since you can put it on any side. This has a tab that goes up and into the bike rack and secures. Now for our scenario, I'm actually gonna go ahead and put this on the back simply because that's gonna just be a little bit easier for me personally.

This extends out, it is telescoping, and it secures down. So you can put it on even with the bike loaded and then you just go through the motions of removing the wheel straps. So here's one, and then here's two, and then here's our frame mount. The frame mount, by the way, is lockable. So rather than having to deal with extra cable locks, you can just lock the frame mount and then you are secure. What I'm actually gonna do is bring this up, and then out, and then in, and now I'm ready to unload our bike. So this truck sits pretty tall up, so that's why it's a good thing we have this ramp here just to help out with that unloading process and I don't have to support the entire weight of the bike. And looking in at the bike rack, you can see that the trays have different widths there and that's to support different types of tire widths. So that V shape there also helps just kind of wall in the wheel, making that ramping up and down so much easier. Now you did see that I had to take the ramp out of the truck bed, that is because the ramp is not stored on the bike rack. So that's just something to keep in mind. Make sure you do not forget this before your trip because this is super helpful and super useful. Just put this off to the side right there. A lot of this rack is made of metal so it's very durable, very sturdy, not as many plastic points, but it also makes this rack pretty heavy. The good news is it does have wheels on it. So if you needed to store this inside your garage, you simply bring the trays up, fold them up, then you can carry it and then wheel it around and then that's how you would also install it into your hitch, and then you just bring the trays down and that's when you load up your bikes. Or you can keep this bike rack on your vehicle when you put it in the compact position. So to give a comparison for the compact versus non-compact, let's first go and take a measure from our bumper. So here at the end of the bike rack, that sits at 34 inches of length added to the back of our truck. And we have plenty of ground clearance here. So ground clearance is first measured here at the end of the rack to the ground, about 20 inches, and then from the trays to the ground, 24 and a quarter inches. And that means that this is high off the ground where the ramp is super helpful 'cause you don't wanna lift your bikes up two feet, but we also have plenty clearance that we're not bottoming out anytime soon. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna lift upon this middle handle this time, and now we're in our compact position where it takes up less space. I would put these straps away before driving just so they're not flopping around by the way. So measuring again from our bumper to the end of the rack, this time, this sits at 20 inches. Big difference compared to earlier. Now if you're curious about if you can lower the tailgate with the bike rack in the upright position, well, you can see not as much. So if you we inchesre to access your truck bed, then you should go ahead and bring the rack back down into the bike loading position. The tailgate will sit a little bit on the bike rack. So I wouldn't put anything heavy on the tailgate. You would have to tilt the whole rack away (tailgate thuds) if you want complete access. So that's just something a lot of people ask about. This still does fit with the truck. You saw that tilt-away function, that was phenomenal. Not that many bike racks fit behind our truck here and give full access to the truck bed, especially with bikes loaded on there. So that's definitely gonna be the biggest thing about how this fits with our truck. This is only a two-bike rack, meaning you can't add more bikes. It's not expandable that way. So if that's something for, if that's the case for you and you're looking for maybe like a three or a four-bike rack, we do have some other options right here at etrailer. But for something that's super versatile, can tilt away, has these wheels, and if you're ever curious about those other functions, check out my full review, then the Saris CycleOn is gonna be a great fit. You saw it right here on our 2021 Chevrolet Silverado. My name is Evangeline, and I hope you enjoyed this journey.