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The Helium Platform XT keeps your bike’s frame spotless. Its pivoting upright arms grab the wheels instead of the tubes, so there’s no contact with carbon or custom paint. The ratcheting design locks the arms snugly over your tires, keeping bikes steady while you drive. It fits wheel sizes from 26" to 29" and tires up to 3.0" wide, making it a solid match for everything from road rigs to mountain builds.
The long, cradle-free trays make setup easy and spacing simple. Because each tray is grooved its entire length, you can slide bikes forward or back to avoid handlebar or pedal clashes. With up to 52" of wheelbase capacity and 10" between bikes, there’s room to get the alignment just right every time.
Need something from the back while your bikes are on? The rack tilts down even when loaded, letting you reach your gear without taking anything off. The front-mounted release handle means both hands stay on the rack as you tilt it—no awkward reaching around bikes. When you’re done riding, fold it up for compact storage or to park in tight spaces.
Getting ready to roll is quick. The hand-tightening cam system expands inside the hitch to hold everything tight and quiet—no tools needed. It fits both 1-1/4" and 2" receivers thanks to a removable adapter sleeve, and once installed, the connection stays solid with no sway or clunking.
The Helium Platform XT comes ready to lock down your gear. Each arm has an integrated cable lock that stores inside when not in use, and a locking knob secures the rack itself. All locks are keyed alike under Thule’s One-Key System, keeping things simple while protecting both your bikes and your rack.
Specs: 2-bike capacity; 45 lbs per bike; max tire width 3.0"; wheelbase 52"; wheel size 26"–29"; distance between bikes 10"; carrier weight 43 lbs.
Customer Satisfaction Score:
95% were satisfied with this product
5% of customers were not satisfied
Ratings & Reviews
If it carries bikes as well as it looks, should be fine. Instructions terrible. I had to call eTrailers for help but they said call Thule, despite my question pertaining to the lock cores which are used in every single Thule product. The uncut key is used to install the lock cores FYI, when it is inserted into the core it will align all the tabs to one side and then you align that with the cutout in the lock hole. The other issue I had with the instructions is they are not clear at all about which of the two style of arms go where. I had to remove and reinstall 2 arms twice, as they want one arm with the cable lock built-in on each side. Also, one of the bolt cover plugs was broken from the factory and fell out of the bag as I was removing the arms from the box.
Fast delivery. Great product.
This has been a great product. Very easy to load and unload the bikes. One of our bikes is very unusual and this is the only carrier we've found that works with it. And the carrier works equally well with normal bikes.
perfect for what I needed, Only reason it's not five stars is because I didn't want to spend top dollar for a five-star rack - it's exactly what I expected and works great.
Easy to install and very lightweight. Very well built product
The product is excellent. It's extremely sturdy and the bikes feel stable in the back of your vehicle. Needs a lot of improvements in the instruction manual
Works and looks great. I use it for a Thule Helium bike rack and it's perfect for this application. I did have a little trouble with installation as hitch was probably bent just over 1/4 inch in shipping. I had to use a hydralic jack and 4X4 to bend back (get bolting surfaces separated about 3/8" inch) to fit around gas tank and line up bolt holes. So installation took much longer than expected, but hitch looks and works great!
This rack has been perfect! It securely holds two carbon fiber bikes without touching the frames. It tilts down to allow me to open the hatchback on my Honda Fit without having to remove the bikes. I highly recommend it!
First of all, we love this rack! We bought it to replace our Thule 4bike Ridgeline rack, which still works great, but is not as easy for us seniors to use. The Helium fits perfectly on our 2014 Subaru Outback, with great clearance for the hatch when tilted away. Other things we love about the new rack:
1. It is so easy to lift the bikes and load them into the trays. The Ridgeline required that we lift the bikes up significantly higher, and then jockey them back into position, often fighting against the straps and clamps that inevitably hung up the bikes as we maneuvered them into the right spots. The Helium eliminates all that. We simply set the bikes into the tray, pulled up one arm, pulled up the other, and done. Soooo much faster and easier, and no sore shoulders or back from the awkward lift-load action that the Ridgeline required.
2. The ratcheting arms are super easy to operate - no more battling with floppy straps or bulky anti-sway cups.
3. Like the Ridgeline, this Helium is rock steady: no swaying, bouncing, or rattling.
4. The built-in cable-locks slide away into hidden storage channels in the bottom trays. When extended, they are long enough to loop through the ratchet arm, front tire, and bike frame.
5. The key for the hitch lock and the cable locks are the same, so we only carry one key instead of two.
There are a few things that could be improved on the Helium:
1. The builtin locking cable and lock mechanism are fairly tough to pull out of the storage slot. On ours, one of them is just a little bit tight, but the other requires a two-hand grip and lots of pulling to get the cable and lock to come out of the built-in storage tube.
2. The keys and locks seem to be rough-cut, as they don't work smoothly. They definitely improved after we put a little graphite on them, but the locks are still tough to operate, and the keys have to be jiggled quite a bit to find the sweet spot for both inserting them and removing them.
Honestly, we would have given this rack five stars if the locking mechanisms weren't so fiddly and and difficult. Thankfully, we don't typically need the locks, and we are very happy with this rack. We plan to leave it on the Subie all the time so we can pop the bikes on and go when the opportunity arises.
Very easy to put together and exactly what I was looking for with our carbon bikes. Paul B informed when my order was in, when it was expected to ship, when it shipped and that it was delivered. Couldn’t be happier with the service and the product.
Timothy
7/27/2025
I’ve had 2 other types of bike racks over the years, hanging types, and they worked but had marred the paint finish. Although a little more expensive, it is by far the best rack I’ve used or seen. Highly recommend ed.
First off, it is definitely the rack I need for our rides in California and Colorado. The ease of loading the rack to vehicles and bikes to rack is its main selling point. I would have given it 5 stars but it is heavier than I hoped and the universal diagram assembly instructions left a lot to be desired.
Tim
7/3/2025
After a years use, I am still quite happy with this bike rack. The hardest thing to get use to was feeling that the expensive bikes were secure because they were so easy to load. It is by far the best rack I have used.
Easy to assemble and use. It does exactly what we hoped it would.
Instructions are hard to understand for the locks but figured it out. Very easy to assemble and operate
Brooke M.
5/22/2025
Thanks for sending in the photo, Dave! Would you have any tips about the locks for anyone else out facing the same struggle?
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Alison
2/26/2024
After a year of using this, we still love it, and are very glad we made the investment.