Excelsius

I am having a hitch installed on my Civic to carry my new CAAD10 4. I have bought Swagman XTC-2 and was wondering if anyone here has used it. My only concern is that the bike is stabilized by a hook that touches the top bar and I saw maybe one or two people mention that it had scratched their bike. I have no idea if they had mounted the rack properly - I am getting the special Swagman threaded anit-wobble lock pin. If anyone has used this rack, please share your experiences. If my bike might get scratched, I will just return XTC (got it from Amazon) and pay another $200 to get the Thule T2. But for a bunch of reasons, I don't want to do that unless Swagman really can't do the job.

If no one here has the rack, I am wondering if there is a different forum I should try.

diverguy

I have that rack and love it. One of the advantages is you can get a small padlock to lock each hook/bracket and about the only thing anyone could steal would be the seat. Even the wheels are locked in place. The first time I used it, the rubber padding on the hook left a rubber rub mark on my top bar. It came off with a little cleaner. I took an old wash cloth, cut it into fourths, and use that as a buffer between the hook and the top bar. Works great. I wouldn't hesitate to buy the rack again.

Excelsius

Sounds good. Maybe I'll tie some microfiber cloth to cover the rubber touching the top bar

island rider

I'm not sure I have the same brand, but I have the same setup. I really like it. I can fold up the sides so it doesn't screw up the clearance on my Jeep when I don't have bikes on it, and I can lean down the center bar so that I can get into the back without having to take off the whole hitch (and there is usually enough clearance to just open the door a little and get what I need in or out.

As for the hooks. If you keep the rack on your car I can imagine that the would get road-dirt on them and that would cause a problem with the cross-tube. I choose to put a rag between the hook and the bike on my more valuable ones. That said, I never had a scratch problem on the bikes where I didn't use one, but better safe than sorry.

Tunnelrat81

Also have the rack, and have really enjoyed it. Stories of driving bikes into garages, money, and significant loss of fuel economy with (and even without) bikes was plenty of reason for me to try the ~$130 Swagman. I got the straight bar one with the 2in. bar and anti-rattle pin. Can't even tell that they are back there. And if someone rear-ends me, at least there's a chance that they have insurance and can pick up the tab, whereas if I drive it into the garage, it's on me alone. =) Other benefits are ease of installing for use (my 110 lb wife can install and mount bikes to it), and the small storing size. I couldn't be happier.

I would still recommend using an additional cable lock (in addition to the padlocks) as the racks are far from theft-proof. I would buy another one in an instant though. Oh, and I also use a rag for the hooks. =)

-Jeremy

Excelsius

Given the easy solution of using rags, I have no idea why some people keep complaining about top bar contact. I mean is that really worth $200 more to get Thule? And it's not the price that I was mainly concerned about anyway. The greatest thing about Swagman is how compact it is for smaller cars. It is also relatively light (yet durable), which means that when you're taking those long trips, the fuel economy of your car is not going to be impacted as much. It is also easy to store if you don't have much space. Thule T2 takes a lot of space.

Swagman would be better if it also worked with regular sized padlocks, but it's still fine I guess. Does anyone have any good security tips to make the bikes more or less steal-proof?