Video Transcript for A Closer Look at the Benton LittleShift Bike Rack with Hitch and Bike Locks

Hello neighbor, this is Curt with etrailer. And today we're gonna take a look at the Benton LittleShift hitch bike rack for one bike, along with the cable lock and locking hitch pin. So finding a good hitch bike carrier for a single bike can be a hard thing to do. A lot of the ones that you find out there are kind of specialty-related as far as how they mount and what styles of bikes they can take. But the cool thing about the LittleShift is that it's extremely versatile. It can be wheel or frame-mounted, so it can accommodate a lot of different styles of bikes.

It also is lightweight and compact, however, it's durable enough that it can actually have an 80-pound weight capacity, which makes it able to accommodate e-bikes as well. So let's take a look. So let's talk first about where it really shines, which is its versatility. And the cool thing about it is that it can be wheel-mounted as you see here, which is generally the most popular way to do it. However, we're seeing more and more bikes with fenders these days, in which a wheel mount is unfortunately outta the question.

Good thing for us is that the LittleShift can actually go from a wheel mount to a frame mount. And the way you'll do that is on our post and hook here, we've got this button, we're just gonna depress that. We can lift our hook completely off the post, move it back here, and mount it to the frame. That way we could keep our fenders safe and can still keep our bike really secure onto the rack. We're gonna move it back just as easily, and set it down in place on our wheel.

So along with being able to do both of those things, both of those styles, it's also gonna accommodate tires up to four inches wide, wheel diameters between 20 inches and 29 inches. So it will be able to accommodate some of those kids' bikes that are out there as well, and wheel bases up to 50 inches. So for peace of mind, along with the post and hook to secure the bike onto our rack, we also have two ratcheting wheel straps, so one on each wheel. And that's three total points of contact. A lot of bike racks out there have only one or two.

So I like the fact that this has a third one. It just gives me that peace of mind that my bike isn't gonna go anywhere. Along with that, for security, we also have a cable lock that is included, along with a locking hitch pin. And these are going to be keyed alike. So you only need one key to operate your cable lock and operate your locking hitch pin. Now the thing about the cable lock you should always keep in mind is, we never really recommend actually driving with the cable lock on it. Reason being is with all the road vibrations, the lock and things can knock around, get tangled up in your chain, scratch up your frame, and things like that. So really the cable lock is gonna mostly be for when you're actually leaving the vehicle with the bike on it and you wanna make sure that nobody's gonna make off with your bike. The rack itself has these two loops included down here on this plate, that you can run the cable lock through easily. Now let's talk a little bit about the shape of this, and how it might fit your vehicle. And the reason I'm mentioning this is because for one thing, vehicles all have different hitch heights, just depending on what it is. Even some different trim models can offer different hitch heights. The other thing is that different hitches that go on the same vehicle can actually change that slightly as well. So just to give you an idea of whether or not this is gonna fit your vehicle really well, we've got from the center of our hitch pin to the center of the wheel cup here is gonna be 14 and three quarter inches. So you can use that depending on the size of your bike to determine how close of contact it's going to come. The shank here has a half inch rise to it, so it'll actually come up, like basically, the end of it here, as far as ground clearance goes. Figure that on being a half inch above the bottom of your hitch receiver there. The other thing we'll talk about is how high up these wheel cups go. And I'll get to the reason why this is important in just a moment. But from the top of your inside of your hitch right here, basically the top of your shank, to the top of this wheel cup, is about eight inches. The reason that I'm bringing that up is because this bike rack does not have a tilt feature. So what that means is that if you're going to get into your lift gate, or if you're going to get into your pickup truck tailgate, you'd have to remove the bike to do it. The cool thing is, is because that's only an eight inch difference right there in almost every case when you have a pickup truck and you want to drop the tailgate, you can actually leave the bike rack in here and it won't interfere with it whatsoever. So with the bike removed, you could see with it folded down, we would have full access to our lift gate here without any real issue. It doesn't stick out that far from the bumper, or from the hitch really. So you can get around it, and get in and outta here relatively easy. Same thing I had mentioned the height earlier as far as dropping a tailgate, I gave you that measurement so you could determine whether it would work with your truck or not. So while that might be a little bit convenient for a lot of people, my thing is, if I've got big trips to the store, run errands, things where I'm really gonna have to get in and out of my lift gate, chances are, I wasn't out hitting the trail that day. So it's one of those things where I would just kind of plan accordingly. Now if I have to stop somewhere real quick and just pick something up that's a couple bags, or whatever it might be, I'd probably just throw them in the backseat or something like that if I had a bike out that day. But generally speaking, the cool thing about this is that it's so compact and unobtrusive that it could actually live in the hitch if you really wanted it to. Also, if you're somebody that has a roof rack and you put a lot of roof accessories up there, great thing about this is this plate right here has a grip to it, and what it'll allow you to do is stand up on it and get some leverage to help load, unload, or adjust some of those rooftop items. So let's talk a little bit about how we get the LittleShift loaded up. Now it is gonna fit into your two-by-two inch hitch. The hitch pin for it has a special flat end. It's got a D shape. So there is a specific pin that you have to use with this. And we're gonna put it in here from right to left. And once we do that, we're gonna go ahead and grab our lock washer, and our nut, and we're gonna get those threaded on real tight. Now before I tighten this down completely, as you can see, I've got a lot of movement here in the shank with the bike rack itself, that kinda rattle and vibration, you don't really want that to occur too much. So we're gonna tighten this bolt down and it's gonna act as an anti-rattle device. So what I'm gonna do is take this 18-millimeter socket, and I'm just going to tighten this nut down completely. Once I've got that tightened down completely, I've eliminated almost all of that movement out of the hitch. In fact, you can see I'm moving the vehicle as I go. Once I get that on, I'm gonna take my lock. Now this is threaded, so there is kind of a bolt hole here at the end of this bolt that you're gonna have to thread this into before twisting this, it's a screw type lock, twisting this to tighten it down into place. Now while that particular style of lock seems like it could be a little bit of a nuisance as far as taking the bike rack in and out, I agree there are bike racks out there that are easier to do that with. However, because this is so compact and unobtrusive to all the other functions that we have, again, this is a bike rack that could easily live in the hitch. And if you've got a folding bike carrier, or you're used to a folding bike carrier, this doesn't come out past the hitch much more or even less than some of those style of racks. So if you're concerned with space in the garage while you keep this in, if you've had a folding bike carrier on your hitch in the past and we inchesre able to park, likely you'll have no problem with this. But let's move on and we're gonna show you exactly how to load the bike up. So we're just going to go ahead and undo our straps first. It's a good idea if you're driving without a bike to secure the straps and to secure your post as well. Then we're gonna lift our post up. I'm gonna get the hook all the way up to make sure that it clears our wheel. Then I'm just gonna come around, lift the bike up, and set it down into its cradles. And with it in the wheel clip there, first thing I'm gonna do is secure it upright with my post and hook. Then I'm gonna move on to attaching my straps. We'll feed 'em right through the spokes. There's this nice pad on 'em to protect your wheels. And we're gonna tighten those all the way through. We're gonna repeat that process up here on the front. And that's gonna go through really nicely. So again, very secure and everything on here pretty easy. Now, I mentioned earlier that this will accommodate up to 80 pounds as far as your bike goes. So there is no ramp attachment that would go with this. So if you do have a heavier bike, just make sure you're comfortable with getting it up to in between that three to four inch range above whatever the top of the inside of your hitch is, that's about where you're gonna need to get it to this point here to get it up and into the cradle. So now we've got our bike loaded up and we are ready to head out and hit the trail. But if after watching this video, you've still got questions about the LittleShift, go ahead and leave those in the comments below. We would love to answer those for you. It'll help you and other neighbors just like you to make the best decision for yourself. Once again, this is Curt with etrailer. Thanks for stopping by.