Lockrack Adjustable Watersport Carrier - Kayak, Canoe, or 2 SUPs - Side Loading - Universal Mount

Video Transcript for Lockrack Adjustable Watersport Carrier Review

Colin: Hey everyone. It's Colin here at etrailer. Today we're going to take a look at a pretty cool set-up from Lock Rack. This is their adjustable watersport carrier. This carrier is going to be able to load up to one kayak, one canoe, or up to a pair of stand-up paddle boards.And right off the bat, the thing that I just really like about this set-up is that we have no straps to secure it. We don't got to run any straps around the hull of our kayak, and we don't have to worry about bow and stern straps, either.

We're able to just throw it up on our lock rack, get our hooks installed, and then we're ready to go.With my old J-style carrier, you can see I had my anchor mounted in my hood, and I have another one in the back. Just to secure my bow and my stern. That's not even to mention the straps that I had to run around the hull of my kayak.And after a long day of paddling, that's just honestly the last thing I wanted to do, was get all my straps out, untangle them if I didn't have them organized, and then get everything secured.Now, one down side of this rack may be that, if you're trying to get multiple boats or other accessories on your roof, it does take up a good amount of real estate on your roof rack. But if you've only got one kayak to haul, then that's not going to be a problem.Now first, you probably are a bit skeptical of how secure this is really going to be for your kayak. But as you can see, I'm really trying to shake this kayak around and move it.

And the entire vehicle is moving as well. So it's going to be just as secure, if not more than, those J-style or saddle carriers that require straps.Now whether it's on the bottom of a carrier, or even on the arms, we're going to have a nice, thick, rubber construction to both of them. That's just going to help protect your kayak from any type of scratches or abrasions, and it's also going to make sure it's got a good grip on your boat. It's going to help it not move at all, or scoot back and forth while you're traveling.Now, when it comes to unloading your boat when you get to the water, that's going to be nice and easy. Something that this carrier has that's not very common amongst boat carriers is that we have a lock with it.

So if you want to leave it unattended for a little bit of time, whether you need to run into the store, or the gas station. You can run in there knowing that your kayak is going to be safe when you get back.When we want to unlock it, we just take their key system, which is going to be a little bit funky. You just got to line it up with the lock and we'll turn it to the right. You can see our hook comes right out. We have to hold it in that position in order to pull the arm all the way out.When securing it, all you got to do is just push.

You can hear those clicks. That is the locking system making sure it is locked into place.With the carrier empty, we can take a closer look at it. Right away you see the arms over there are actually on their side. That's another bonus of this rack. We don't have to worry about stowing those in the vehicle, or even in the house when we get home. We can pull them all the way out, and you see on the side there's another hole on there. We can slide it into the carrier on its side, and it'll lock into place.Again, that theft deterrent is going to make sure that no one takes it without that key. And it's also going to help when preventing wind noise and drag, because you don't have that added height onto your carrier.Now you can see the center bar right here. That's how we're going to be able to adjust our rack. We have it at the widest setting right now. And that's going to be more than capable of securing your standard kayaks, canoes, or paddle boards. The reason we have it at its widest setting is because we do carry a wide variety of boats, so we want to be able to make sure we get those secured.If you do have a narrower boat, you can bring these in on that bar if you want a more secure fit for it.Now we do have a universal mount on our lock rack system. You can see we have it on our aero style bars right now. But this is also going to work well with round bars, square bars, and most factory roof racks.Now if you are interested in the T-track option, it is available. You just need to take the universal feet off and then you'll have that T-track option.Another benefit of having the arms on their side like we do right now is that we're only adding about 2 1/2 inches to the top of our cross bar. Which can come in handy in any low-clearance situations.When in use, the lock rack is going to add about 17 inches to the height of your roof rack, which is something to keep in mind for any low-clearance situations, like if you we're trying to pull into your garage.Now, as you can see, we also have two of our stand-up paddle boards loaded. They're very secure. You can see they're going to be ready for travel. Now, one thing I do want to point out is that the bottom one does have a little bit of play in it right here, you can see. But as long as that top one is secure, you're not going to have to worry about the bottom one moving at all.Another option you have when it comes to these carriers that can carry multiple boats is going to be the Thule Compass. Now, one advantage that the compass has is that it can actually carry two kayaks. However, you do have to make sure you strap down both kayaks. With the lock rack, we can only carry one kayak but we don't have to put up with any straps.Now we'll go ahead and show you how to get it installed. We have the front rack installed. The rear one is going to assemble and install the exact same way. First let's go over real quick the piece I talked about earlier. This is how you're going to be able to adjust the width of your rack, depending on the size of your watersport craft.Now, what we're going to do is line up the hole with the slot right there that's inside our carrier. I'm going to go on the outermost hole, so we're just going to line this first hole up inside there like so. Then we'll do the same on the other side.Might get a little bit stuck. There. Now it's lined up. And what we're going to do is install our two brackets onto the carrier. How we do that. We need to take off the rubber piece right there, remove the lock nut and spacer from the square bolt. Now we'll insert that through the bottom, and it's going to sit flush inside there.We'll reapply the rubber spacer. Just make sure you push on it, make sure it's stuck. Put the spacer back on. We'll feed it under and feed it up through from the bottom of the carrier. It comes up right there. Now we'll put a lock nut on, and then repeat this for the other side.Now we're not going to tighten down the lock nuts yet, so you can see that the brackets still have a lot of play. We're going to tighten those down when we get it installed on our roof. Now, with that being said, we'll take our bottom brackets and the hardware and get this installed on our rear crossbar.Now we're just going to set it on top of our crossbar. You want to make sure you have these turned to sit right on top. We'll just slide it all the way across. You want to make sure you get it lined up with the front one. Now we'll grab our other hardware real quick. Now what we're going to do to make sure we get it lined up correctly is that, I have the other one set up to where this bottom bracket is touching the foot of my roof rack. So that's just going to make sure that it's lined up almost perfectly.We're going to take a nut right here. We're going to put it inside the slot right there. I'm going to put my finger on it to hold it up there, and then turn it upside down. I'm going to drop a bolt in right there.We got to get that threaded on, so I need to push up a little bit and turn the bolt. Get it threaded on that nut. There we go. You see it pulled down. It's threaded. We'll do the same on the other side as well. Now we can repeat that for the remaining three.Now with our included tool, we're going to go around and tighten up all the bolts, and then we'll move on and tighten up all the lock nuts that are on top of our rack. And we do have an included 10-mm socket. We can just use that to tighten down the lock nuts.It doesn't have to be over-tightened. Just get it pretty snug. Now from there, we need to replace the rubber pads that go on the channels. Easiest way to do that is, we're going to stick one side into the channel right there, and pull it, and stuff it on the other side. We'll do that for both sides.Now, per our instructions, we are going to load up our boat upside down. If you feel that your boat is going to be better right-side up, it's going to be more secure that way, you can go ahead and do that. We're going to first get our boat centered on the rack. And then get our arms installed.Once we get it on from the side, we can just push it over. Now we installed our driver-side arms. All I did was, I pushed them in until they we're locked in place and just making contact with the kayak. Now I'm just going to get our other ones installed. Again, just push forward until it's making contact. Now give it one good push to lock it in place.Now as always, you do want to double-check and make sure that it's sturdy, and that's going to be good for the ride.As you saw, I didn't have to run any type of straps, so after a long day of paddling, it is going to be nice just to throw it up there, get our arms installed, and then hit the road.Thank you all for watching. That's going to do it for our look at the Lock Rack adjustable watersport carrier.