R1T over-bed bikes on Yakima HighRoad Bike Mount

[Riviot]

Tldr; don't sell your hitch racks quite yet.

@Nermal motivated me to load all my bikes and see their fitting. @Dark-Fx and his Yakima Front Loaders look like a better fit. With High Roads, your room for error is towards the spoiler, which leads to dirty tires bumping and scratching the paint when transferring. Front Loader errs towards the rear, much safer. And no, you can't mount the other way. My 71" 650b eMTB barely fit, probably wouldn't if I had fully inflated and nobby tires on. All but my wife's smaller road bike were pushed to the front end of the High Road.

Today's lessons:
-Get PPF or something to protect the paint if mounting over the bed
-Put the truck in lowest setting before transferring
-Much taller than I expected
-Bikes are a PITA to load solo
-Keep your hitch racks for frequent use or around town. I'm glad I kept my Thule T2
-26ers with smaller tires are way better than 700c's because it sits forward more, that was a surprise

Cyclocross-turned-commuter 700c (68" long) and my wife's road bike 700c (65" long)

Cyclocross 700c (68" long)

Women's road bike 700c (65" long)

Hard tail 26er (70" long) and 650b eMTB with street tires (71" long)

26er (70" long)

650b (71" long)

All the way forward on the High Road

Scratches on the spoiler.

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[Nermal]

Tldr; don't sell your hitch racks quite yet.

@Nermal motivated me to load all my bikes and see their fitting. @Dark-Fx and his Yakima Front Loaders look like a better fit. With High Roads, your room for error is towards the spoiler, which leads to dirty tires bumping and scratching the paint when transferring. Front Loader errs towards the rear, much safer. And no, you can't mount the other way. My 71" 650b eMTB barely fit, probably wouldn't if I had fully inflated and nobby tires on. All but my wife's smaller road bike were pushed to the front end of the High Road.

Today's lessons:
-Get PPF or something to protect the paint if mounting over the bed
-Put the truck in lowest setting before transferring
-Much taller than I expected
-Bikes are a PITA to load solo
-Keep your hitch racks for frequent use or around town. I'm glad I kept my Thule T2
-26ers with smaller tires are way better than 700c's because it sits forward more, that was a surprise

Cyclocross-turned-commuter 700c (68" long) and my wife's road bike 700c (65" long)

Cyclocross 700c (68" long)

Women's road bike 700c (65" long)

Hard tail 26er (70" long) and 650b eMTB with street tires (71" long)

26er (70" long)

650b (71" long)

All the way forward on the High Road

Scratches on the spoiler.

Thanks for this! Confirms some suspicions. Bummer about the scratches. whodathunk you’d need PPF there?

Moot point for me as I’m apparently never getting crossbars I ordered with old address issues and my guide ghosting me on the topic.

 

[fastwheels]

Moot point for me as I’m apparently never getting crossbars I ordered with old address issues and my guide ghosting me on the topic.

Sound like my issue also - my accessories were delivered to my old address on 3/6, even though my address was updated in my account in October 2019, and later verified with a conversation with a CS rep in 2020. If they hadn't called prior to truck delivery that would have gone to wrong address also!
Guide told me last Thursday when I called her that they would have UPS collect and redeliver. Following up this week they now say there will be new shipments (she indicated that this has happened for several people) from CA this week and then they will go about picking up the mis-delivered packages later. That being said, I still have not heard that the parts have actually been shipped out this week, so we'll see how this turns out. I can always drive 250 miles to my old house and pick up the parts there...

 

[moosehead]

Thanks for this.

+1 Yak or others need to come up with a better R1T tray setup where the front tire is facing foreward, and whole bIke is shifted further aft.

So far for bed mounts the 1Up seems the best per @Dark-Fx, unless you have a large slack 29er.

 

[DubuqueMTB]

Thanks for posting. I’ll be keeping my Kuat transfer hitch rack for now. But I am worried it won’t be able to flip up without hitting the tailgate.

I’m still thinking a tailgate pad will be the way go to. Only issue is getting straps to go through the extra flap on the gooseneck tailgate. Any current owners done this yet?

 

[Riviot]

I am worried it won’t be able to flip up without hitting the tailgate.

Get a hitch extender, I did this on my Disco because the spare tire stuck out so much.

 

[User433]

I haven't followed every thread, but from what I can tell the only bed rack mount option for 29ers is from a 3rd party called 1Up. Is that right?

 

[amhawk60]

Thanks for this! Confirms some suspicions. Bummer about the scratches. whodathunk you’d need PPF there?

Moot point for me as I’m apparently never getting crossbars I ordered with old address issues and my guide ghosting me on the topic.

Thanks for the post. Help out an old guy--what is PPF?

 

[godfodder0901]

Thanks for the post. Help out an old guy--what is PPF?

Paint protection film.

 

[WattsGas]

Looks like a fork mount may be the way to go.

 

[Freshturk]

While not ideal, has anyone just used the roof for mount points? I currently have a 2 bike 1up but really only want to use it when I have a need for more than 2 bikes. I love the idea of having a mount ready for anytime I’m taking a bike. I realize my XL 29er may not work even with the 1up racks but I’m hopefully atleast my 60cm roadie will. I would assume both would work fine on the roof but I don’t trust myself enough not to pull into the garage with them loaded

 

[Riviot]

While not ideal, has anyone just used the roof for mount points? I currently have a 2 bike 1up but really only want to use it when I have a need for more than 2 bikes. I love the idea of having a mount ready for anytime I’m taking a bike. I realize my XL 29er may not work even with the 1up racks but I’m hopefully atleast my 60cm roadie will. I would assume both would work fine on the roof but I don’t trust myself enough not to pull into the garage with them loaded

Even in the Lowest ride height, loading over the bed was unwieldy. I couldn't imagine over the roof...

 

[Freshturk]

Figured the gear tunnel as a step would come in handy.

 

[Wefty]

Or climb in the bed.

 

[Riviot]

Figured the gear tunnel as a step would come in handy.

Or climb in the bed.

I thought about both, but that would mean climbing up with bike in hand. Lowest is pretty low, but it's still a climb to get in the bed.

I'll try different ways, but nothing beats having a helping hand... Or a hitch rack.

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