Thule Hitch Bike Racks Review - 2014 Kia Sportage

Review of the Thule Hitch Bike Racks on a 2014 Kia Sportage

Today on our 2014 Kia Sportage we're going to take a look at the Thule Rollway 2 Bike Rack Hanging Style. That part number is TH912XTR. Now we already have a bike on our rack, and we have our rack hooked to our vehicle. I was going to show you a few features. Like I said before this is a 2 bike rack, and how we have our bike rack on our rack, we have a total of 3 straps. We have 2 up top, and we have our anti-sway straps to the side.

That's going to keep the bike from swaying as you're riding down that road. We're going to take the 2 off at top first, then we're going to take off our anti-sway strap. Now if you're loading your bike, you do the anti-sway strap first, then your other 2 straps. You're going to take it off, set it off to the side. Since you have straps on your bike rack, go ahead and replace them so you won't lose them or damage them.

We're going to do that first. All righty. Now we're going to take a few measurements just to show you overall distance and a few other ones. The overall distance will be, I'm looking at 26 inches here. Our closest to the bumper will be 2 1/2 inches here at the grade lever, and for our ground clearance I'm looking at 11 inches there. Now the cradle arms do come down, so we're going to show you how we did that.

We pull on this grey lever here, bring them down. Now overall distance has changed, so let's go ahead and take one more measurement. Now we're looking at 11 inches right here. Now this bike rack has a tilting feature, so if you need to get inside your hatch you pull on this grey lever here, bringing our bike rack down, and now we can get inside our hatch. You have plenty of room on both sides, so if you need to put anything in or take anything out, you should have no problem at all. We're going to go ahead and bring up our bike rack back up up.

Now this bike rack is equipted for 1 1/4 and 2 inch hitches. Today we're using the 2 inch hitch. It also comes with an anti-rattle bolt, so that's going to keep out some of that play in your shank as you're riding down the road. You should have a smooth ride inside and outside your vehicle. that's going to complete our look at the Thule Road Way 2 Bike Rack. That part number again is TH912XTR, on today's 2014 Kia Sportage. Let's see how it does on our test course. Here it is on our test course. First is the slalom area which simulates side to side action like turning the corners, or evasive maneuvers. Next are the alternate speed bumps which show you the twisting action like hitting a pot hole, road debris, or hitting a curb. Finally we're at the solid speed bumps which show the up and down action to simulate a parking garage or coming out of your driveway.