I added a Thule Spare Me rack to my truck’s spare tire on my rear bumper swing arm. The rack is only 15lbs, and I like that it locks to the wheel, giving some theft protection for the rack and my spare tire. The rack also has a built in cable lock to secure the bike.
I add the orange tape to keep myself from walking into the rack’s arms, but you can reposition them down so they’re out of the way. I’m just lazy sometimes. I use the 2nd bike slot for the front wheel, so the bike stays out of the way on narrow Jeep trails. Retails for $430, but I got it on discount because someone had returned it. I also like it’s up higher so you don’t lose departure angle. Downside is carrying the bike by its frame, not good for high end bikes, but my bikes are all steel/aluminum frame.
Here are a few storage solutions. I ended up with three options depending on a few factors. I built a Rockymounts front axle mount that integrates into some L-Track. It can be set into various places around the truck.
Option 1 - Inside the truck on a welded platform.
Pros
Option 3 - 6-Place North Shore Rack. We use this for shuttles, storing the bikes when at camp and bringing friends along. We also uses this to hold the muddy bikes until a wash, then put them back inside.
Pros
Holds six bikes
Can handle rough roads
Don’t have to remove the wheels
Keeps the dirty bikes out of the truck
Keeps the bikes out of the camper and truck
Cons
Not too secure
Bikes get dusty and dirty
Need to swing it to access the GFC. A slight inconvenience.
love all the options you have. Makes sense that you just pick the best option based on what you’re doing, who’s tagging along, and what the weather is like.
If I have to add to any dimension of my vehicle, I’d rather make it longer than wider/taller, since that’s the least likely area to get damaged (by me, not the car behind me). And when there’s 10-12k worth of bikes in tow, that’s a big consideration lol. I use my Rocky Mounts Split Rail with a Yakima swing arm. Used to use a tailgate pad here and there, but not a fan of taking up the bed space.
I’ve actually found my North Shore 4 bike rack works great when tilted down as a step to get in. Also it holds my water jug nicely and functions as a hangar.
Hello Monstro44, Would you mind sending me a picture of how your bike is mounted to the Rocky Mountain Mount and Rago Accessory Mount from inside the bed? This looks like the perfect set up for me. Thanks in advance!!!
Hey there. I used a Rocky Mountain mounts locking axle mount but had to drill some holes in the back for it to match the height perfectly for what I needed. The RM axle mount also had to be spaced out about an inch from the Rago. I used some magnetic spacers i had in my garage. The Rago accessory mount goes bolted on direct to the t slot rail.
Was just at a gravel race where these guys were demonstrating/selling their solution. Picked one up for my truck. Pretty good so far but expensive side for sure.
This looks like a pretty sweet setup. Would you mind sharing photos of how it pairs with your gofast? Did you go for a hard mount system or the tailgate system? Thanks for sharing this here.
So the unfortunate thing is that I have a 5’ bed so have to angle it more than I would like. Part of this is due to how far away the axle is put from the tailgate by the system, maybe 2-3". I am going to see if I can make some modifications that will let me have the bike on the passenger side and angle the back wheel to the behind the passenger wheel well instead of across the bed. Currently there’s not enough room to do that. I have the same issue with the rocky mounts mount system and at least the railias system has the fork mount way more accessible without crawling into the bed.
I don’t think this warrants a new thread, so I’m resurrecting this one…
Here’s my ghetto solution that allows me to keep the bike out of sight when I’m at work, so I can go direct to the trailhead at the end of the day.
I attached rivnuts to some 1/8” aluminium so I can remove the fork mount quickly if I need to empty the bed for “truck stuff”. The aluminium angle also stiffens the edge of the plywood to reduce side to side flex.
Then I needed somewhere for the front wheel to go. I spent way too much time over engineering this, and on the scavenger hunt for all of the bolts in my garage.
Overall, it works for around town. I imagine it would be a bit of a pain to travel like this. For travelling, I’m going to look into another fork mount sideways, near the front of the bed.
Attaching the fork to the tailgate is a great idea. If I had seen this a week ago, I probably would have just installed rivnuts in the tailgate and put the fork mount there.
