Half Tailgate Pad for Trucks - 2 Bikes - 21" Wide

Video Transcript for Hyper Tough Tailgate Pad Review

Hi everyone. Aiden here with etrailer. Today we're going to be taking a look at this two bike tailgate pad. Now, a tailgate pad already is a great way to carry a bike. If you've got a truck bed, you might as well utilize that bed space but use the tailgate pad to keep your bikes upright and organized, keep them from banging together and causing damage to one another. But a two bike pad like this is a great option if you only need to carry two bikes.

Why get a full length pad and cover up all of your tailgate if you don't have to. Something like this allows us to offset it to one side, leave the bed open for other stuff and if we leave the pad on between uses, retain full use of our backup camera and our tailgate. Let's check it out. So for starters, how does it perform Well, it's going to be very secure and stable. The way a tailgate pad works is basically it puts a protective pad around your tailgate to keep the paint safe from any scratches or scuffs and then your bike is going to go down over the tailgate and kind of wedge in between there.

The pad will also protect your forks of your bike and the frame. And by wedging it down in there and running a strap around the frame, we keep it from popping up. The back wheel is in one of the ridges in our bed and the result is a pretty strong hold that only gets better as you add more bikes to it. So if you we're just carrying one, there may be a little bit of side to side movement, but by kind of layering the two over top each other like this, it's going to help with the stability quite a bit. We're able to shake the whole truck around with minimal movement from the bike.

Here's a closer look at that pad and strap. It's just a hook and loop strap that'll come undone from around the frame. It's a really wide strap and it's got a soft undercoating here so it's going to protect maybe some special paint on there or any more fragile frames. And the pad underneath is very thick and has this wedge shape to, again, just keep the frame in place. I really like how well built this section is here because it does a lot more to keep the frame in place.

Comparing this to a very similar tailgate pad the Kuat Huk Half Pad, that one's also going to have two bike capacity but it's going to have non-fixed mounting points. So there's five or six places where you can move the straps to space your bikes further apart if you need to. But the only thing with that is when you strap them down, it's really just a strap. There's none of this extra padding or wedges and the straps aren't near as wide. So for me personally, although that tailgate pad is really well constructed, I think it doesn't hold the bikes as nicely as this one does. If you're okay with sacrificing that adjustment side to side and just sticking with the two fixed mounting points, then this one's going to work just fine. When you're ready to unload, just undo that strap and all you gotta do is lift the bike away. We chose to load the inner one first with the tire facing towards the center of the truck. So we don't have anything sticking out blocking our taillights and we layered the outside bike over top of it. Now, personally, this is how I would use it just because again, it's not going to block your taillights as much and I think it'll be a better fit. With the bikes unloaded you can get a better look at those wedges. They're not super soft, they're actually kind of a hard material. I wouldn't describe it as foam by any means, but it does have a little bit of give to it. So it's not going to be anything that I think damages your frame. I think it's just going to give it a little more structure. And when it's not in use, you could just feed that strap back around the buckle and it's ready to go for next time. And these large foam blocks on the side don't really serve much purpose for your bikes. They don't really touch anything whenever the bikes are loaded, but they can come in handy if you use your tailgate pad for other things. Let's say you just leave it on your truck full time, you load up something like a ladder or some lumber and you prop it up against your tailgate. Well, rather than touching the plastic on your vehicle, it can maybe rest on top of these large foam blocks. And when you strap it down, this serves as a bit of cushion and protection for your tailgate. Definitely not the primary purpose of it, but it's something that can certainly be done. But the real benefit to a half pad like this that only sits on half the tailgate is the function of your tailgate. Obviously, our handle is fully accessible. On full length pads, lots of them will have a flap that you can open up to access this when the bikes are unloaded. But on this, it's just open all the time, but so is our backup camera. And obviously, on every truck it's going to be a little bit different, But this is a really narrow pad and I think for the most part, you shouldn't have any issues obstructing that backup camera or the handle because most trucks are all going to be larger than the Maverick here. So if it fits on this really small truck it's going to fit on your larger trucks too. And if you're the type of person that maybe uses your tailgate to eat lunch on at work like I do sometimes, then this isn't going to get in your way of that either. So you retain a lot of vehicle function and take up minimal space on the tailgate with something like this. Around the back, we can see a couple things. First off, there's a small pocket that has hook and loop all throughout and a zipper. It's not a super large pocket but certainly big enough for some sunglasses, maybe some sunscreen, maybe some small tools, anything like that that you might want to keep with your bike stuff. And it can be zipped up and protected from the elements by folding that flap over. So it's just nice to see that there's a little bit of extra storage baked in here 'cause I think it can come in really handy. And this little bit of dirt that's on the pad does wipe away pretty easily. Obviously, something like a wet rag is going to go a lot farther, but this PVC outer coating is going to help protect this from the elements. And if it gets dirty, you can wipe it off and keep it looking good as new. The straps on the back come with these elastic strap keepers to keep all the excess strap tidy and they just feed through these buckles and pull tight to secure around your tailgate when they pass through that gap between the bed and the tailgate. And I'd say those straps do a pretty good job at keeping the tailgate pad on there securely. When nothing's loaded, I can get a little bit of side to side shift, but not much. And on the whole underside of the pad, it's going to be the same material as what's under these straps here. This sort of soft felt material that's going to help protect the paint of your tailgate. And even though the padding is a bit thin, I think it'll do a perfectly fine job when you've got bikes loaded up there. Really the bikes don't weigh all that much. And even if you had something like an e-bike up here, it's not like it's putting a ton of pressure on this outside edge of the tailgate. It's mostly sitting on top where you do have much thicker padding. And as far as my final thoughts go, I think it's going to be a really solid option. I've actually used this pad on my truck here a number of times, both with mountain bikes and my road bike at home and I've never had any issues with it. The reason I like it is I only ever need to carry one to two bikes, so why bother with a full length tailgate pad when I only need the half. The half fits really well in my truck because let's face it, it's a small truck and I run into a lot more clearance issues because of that. But with the half pad, my backup camera is always visible. If I have a bike on here, the tire might block it a little bit but it's nothing too bad. If I've got bikes loaded, I'm kind of expecting that. But when it's not in use, I retain the full function of my vehicle. And on any larger truck, it's going to be the same story. Comparing this back again to that Kuat Huk tailgate pad, that one is going to be just a little bit wider and we have had issues with it blocking backup cameras on certain trucks because of that extra width. So for me, if you're looking to retain that function on your truck, something like this is going to be really nice. Plus it's just a little bit more accessible in terms of price and I think it gets the job done perfectly fine if you're looking to carry one to two bikes to your destination. Thanks for watching.