Kuat Huk Tailgate Bike Pad for Mid-Size Trucks - 5 Bikes - 54" Wide

Video Transcript for Kuat Huk Curved Full-Size Truck Tailgate Pad Review - 2021 Ford Ranger

Hey, everybody, Cooper here at etrailer. Today, we're going to be taking a look at the Kuat Huk on our 2021 Ford Ranger. Now, this version of the Huk is going to be considered the mid-size one, but it is going to cover the full length of our tailgate here on our Ranger. Now, the Kuat Huk is going to be a tailgate pad that can accommodate up to five bikes. If you're looking for something to carry around maybe not as many bikes, there is the half pad version, which only covers up maybe about 1/3 of your tailgate, but it can only accommodate up to two bikes. But this version able to accommodate up to five bikes is a really nice thing, especially when you compare it to some of our hitch-mounted bike racks.

To carry around five back is something that usually it's not even able to do, and even if it can, all that space that's going to be taken up, not only on the back of your vehicle, but storing it in your garage is going to be a very difficult thing to do. And weight-wise, something that can carry around up to five bikes for like a hitch-mounted bike rack is going to be very heavy compared to our pad, which just drapes over our tailgate, we just feed our straps through under it and cinch down, and that installation process is done, which is super easy to do. Taking a look at the inside of our truck bed, we can actually see how the Huk secures our bikes down with these different straps. And a really nice thing about the Huk is even though it can accommodate five bikes, there are all these different points and different styles of connection that you can put on. So if you do need to accommodate, maybe a bike needs to be sitting a little further away from your other bikes, you can move these straps down in those locations, or if you have the wheel well of your truck, and a certain location isn't going to work, you can simply move that strap down a little bit to help accommodate for your wheel well.

And you can even do it between two of them to kind of, you know, half size it if you only need to move it a little bit and don't need to move it a full length of way. And if you're worried about damaging your tailgate at all, you don't have to worry about that either. There's an inch thick padding on each side of the Huk to help protect your bike and your tailgate from any unnecessary damage. And on the inside part of the Huk, the part that's going to sit up against the outside of your tailgate is actually this really nice soft fabric, so that way, we don't cause any additional damage to the paint. Now, to take a look at some of the other additional features that the Huk has to offer, we're actually going to take our bike out, which is as simple as undoing the strap, letting that fall to the side, and grabbing our bike out of our truck bed.

With our bike off, we can see that we did pick up a little bit of dirt from it. The Huk is made out of a TPU plastic. While being very weather and water resistant, it does pick up dirt pretty easily, but it's as simple as taking a little bit of a damp rag, wiping it away, and then you can swipe that dirt right off, make it look as good as new. We do actually have access to our tailgate lever here from this flap here at the back, and if you did want to leave it exposed, there is an included hook and loop strap that we just feed through up here on the Huk. And now we have full access into our tailgate.

The only unfortunate thing about this size is that it does block our backup camera, which does sit a little bit under our Ford logo here. Now, with this open, we can go ahead and lower our tailgate and we can see that there are the straps on the back here that we use to cinch down the Huk. So essentially, you just take that strap and kinda drop it in between this crack, we found this to be the easiest method to do. And once you have it down, you just take that hook and feed it up through into this spot. With all this extra stitching here in place and everything, I do think that these are very secure and you don't have to worry about any of them ripping or tearing. Overall, I do think that the Kuat Huk Mid-Size is a really good tailgate pad. The fact that it has that really easy installation process and carry around up to five bikes versus, you know, your traditional hitch-mounted bike rack, carrying up to around five bikes is just gonna be heavy, bulky, and in the way versus this pad, which is very simple to install, take off, and store when not in use. The fact that we have that flap for our tailgate is a really nice addition as well. If you don't really need to carry around up to five bikes, there is a shorter version made that only carries around up to two bikes and does allow you to use your backup camera and that latch still. So if you we're looking for something like that, that is an available option for you too as well. But if you like everything that you saw here today, we did just take a look at the Kuat Huk Mid-Size on our 2021 Ford Ranger. My name's Cooper, and thanks for watching.