Video Transcript for What to Know About the Yakima GateKeeper Tailgate Pad for Full-Size Trucks

How's it going neighbors This is Ed here with etrailer.com and we're taking a look at the Yakima Gatekeeper six bike carrier for the back of your full size pickup. Adding a bike pad to the back of your pickup could be a solution to allow you to get multiple bikes out for your journey on the back of your truck in the easiest way without anything really hanging from the back of your hitch. Maybe you have a cargo basket or something else that you want to use in conjunction with that. The trade off is, it's a really cost effective way to get multiple bikes on the road with you, but you will be making contact with the other bikes. As you can see, the tires are resting against the forts and you're having a contact to the pad underneath right here that secures the bike. Here in the truck bed, you can see we also have some bike to bike contact as well.

You can do what you can to separate, use foam or pool noodles or something to try to keep some separation. However, it is something that's gonna be hard to avoid with this type of setup to get your bikes on the road. However, the way that your bikes are secured using the sit tight cradles and fastened with the G hook strap, these guys are just gonna hook in here and it's padded to protect the finish on your bike. So it's gonna minimize the contact that you're gonna, well, the damage that you could potentially receive on your frame but you know, it's kind of one of those deals where you know you need to move six bikes on the back of your truck, you don't necessarily need the full capacity of your bed. This would be a great option to go to get those things on the road.

Now, with it being a Yakima product, the quality of the materials are gonna be really solid. You have a material that's UV resistant and it's gonna hold up against the weather and elements being just out on the back of a vehicle. To get an idea how the gatekeeper looks in the real world, I just took a quick spin around our test course here at etrailer.com to get, and you see the bikes are stable, sturdy, and not falling off the back of the truck. We loaded up with four bikes and I feel very confident we'd be able to get up to the six bike capacity without having any issue other than the contact that we already spoke about. So let's take a closer look at our G hook right here on our strap.

The straps themselves are nice and sturdy and they feel secure. You know how sometimes you can get a feel for nylon straps that they're not gonna really hold up, but you can tell that these are nice and and sturdy. The foam on the inside of your pad of your cradle is nice and firm, so they're snug up against the bottom of your frame. And the felt on the inside of here is gonna be nice and soft to create, you know, to avoid any scratching that could happen. Again, your G hook goes in really easily and it's very, very secure.

As far as the different types of bikes that you could transport on the gatekeeper, I would feel comfortable going with mountain bikes, road bikes. It's when you get into unconventional frames like step throughs or maybe some e-bikes or even kids bikes, the spacing on those are a little bit different. So you may encounter some issues and sadly, that's one of those things. It's kind of a trial and error to see if it works. However, road bikes, mountain bikes, and traditional frame bikes, you should be okay to get six loaded up. At 62 inches, the gatekeeper's gonna fit most full-sized trucks, and it's going to give you that almost custom fit where it's not hanging over or obstructing anything. Any more than six full size bikes on the back of your pickup. I would say the biggest drawback for these types of carriers, like truck bed pads in general, is the fact that you're gonna have to lift your bike up, you know, up over your tailgate to get it secured. And we're just gonna lift up our hook. And now we're just gonna lift our bike out of the bed of the truck and remove our other bikes and get a closer look at the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper features the hindsight window that allows you to, A: expose your backup camera, so you can maintain function of it when you're not loaded, and get access to your release for your tailgate. To secure the gatekeeper to the back of your bed, you're gonna feed through the straps here and they're actually textured so they don't get stuck and bound up underneath your tailgate. And you're just gonna work it through the strap here and fasten her down. And you have a little cuff here to put up your excess strap just to keep it out your way. As far as security, you don't have an included bike walk, but you can add a cable lock that'll help secure your bikes to the carrier in turn of securing it to the truck. So this has been a look at the Yakima Gatekeeper six bike carrier for your full size pickup. I'm Ed. This is etrailer.com, and you have a great day.