North Shore Racks review

Home-grown and bomb-proof

Words by Dan Barham. Photos by Dan Barham.
Date: 2008-10-23

I wouldn't say I was a fundamentally forgetful person; I remember most people's birthdays, turn up for meetings at (approximately) the right time and rarely lose my keys.  In general, things are pretty sorted in the ol' memory part of my life.  Why is it then that I seem incapable of remembering about the bikes I'd lovingly strapped to the roof of my car just minutes earlier, oblivious to their existence as I accelerate towards my underground parking lot; towards the height restriction barrier lying in wait like a coiled snake in the grass, ready to punish my inattentiveness with a pant-filling bang and evening of general sadness?

One mangled roof Heartbreaking, isn't it?

Two damaged roofs in two fairly new cars was a fairly good indicator that roof-mounted bike racks shouldn't feature prominently in my life, so when the folks at North Shore Racks mentioned they had a two-bike version of their hitch-mounted carrier that needed reviewing I happily accepted the assignment, knowing full well it'd be the only thing that would save me from myself.

Fitting the rack was a breeze, the 1¼" hitch play-free thanks to the anti-slop mounting device, with only minimal adjustments for bike clearance required to get the thing ready to roll.  First impressions were that this was one beefy piece of kit.  Not beefy in a lardy, pointlessly obese kind of way, but beefy as it strong, tough and toned.  There's not an inch of plasti-coated flexy metal anywhere, no flimsy wheel trays to distort and wimpy supports to bend, just boxy steel struts and thick welds.  Each bike is held by an ingenious four-pronged fork that grabs the fork crown and lower headtube, while the rear wheel is tied down using "marine-grade" (i.e. they won't go brittle in the sun) rope grips.

  Plenty of space either side for your lights to be visible, plus no overhanging wheels.

In the six months since being fitted to my car, this rack has been through the grinder.  Numerous trips to the Interior, Northern BC, the Sunshine Coast and Whistler have all given the rack ample opportunity to show its weaknesses, be it highway driving or shuttling up various logging roads, and this being my only vehicle meant the simple day-to-day tasks of life also had their chance to expose any functional faults with the design. 

They all, by and large, failed.  I'm going to have to choose my words pretty carefully here to avoid this sounding like a paid 'infomercial', but I can find very little to criticize about this rack.  It's sturdy, secure and easy to use - bikes load in mere seconds, and stay secure for the duration of the journey.  I've had all manner of rides mounted, from burly DH bikes to svelte XC machines and each one has gone on and off with the same no-nonsense approach.  Design-wise I'm not a huge fan of the extra room required to mount bikes perpendicular to the rear window, a feature exacerbated by the boxy style of my station wagon, but I can definitely see the advantages of having more visible brake lights and haven't ever had to detangle a mess of pedals, or worry about brake levers fouling top-tubes - each bike is kept distinctly separate from the other.  Fully laden with two 40lb bikes there's a fair amount of flex, but not from the rack, rather the small-sized hitch mount twisting slightly on the chassis.  Not a lot that can be done about that, other than finding someone to who'll fit a 2" hitch to an undersized vehicle.  That said, if you did, you wouldn't have to buy a whole new rack, simply replace the mounting beam with a 2" version.

Opening the back with the bikes on is easy, provided someone hasn't blocked you in.

Indeed, the only real problem I've noticed so far is something that is apparently not even an issue - the play in the jointed main arm.  Where the rack hinges there's a removeable pin, and on my early-production model there's a small amount of play that translates to an annoying rattle when the rack's unladen.  Given that I was forewarned about the problem, and reassured it'd been fixed in later revisions, it's not something I can really level as a fault.  If I was being truly picky, I'd say it could be easy to lose the retaining pins that come with each main bolt - that said, I haven't done yet, and even so I was given a couple of spares in the rack box just in case.

Solid fixings and chunky welds mean this isn't going to break any time soon.

"Marine-grade" fixings, apparently, so they won't be affected by the elements.

There is a bit of flex on my 1 1/4" hitch, but nothing too severe.  2" versions are rock-solid.

I haven't found a fork yet that won't fit in the ingenious mounts.

This 2-bike rack will set you back $399.99, which compares very favourably with some of the less well-built but more expensive competition, and for those with 2" hitches there's also the options of 4-bike at $499.99 and a whopping 6-bike version for $599.99.

I like this rack, I'd buy this rack.  My car's roof, and my building manager, would thank me for it.

See northshoreracks.com for more details.

Unless you have a big-ass pick up with a Dakine pad carrying bikes on vehicles is a pain.  Dan likes this solution though.  What have you figured out yourself?  What do you think of the North Shore Rack?   Tell us how you make it all work.