Here's a side shot of everything so you can see how it's all spaced out.
Final thoughts and conclusion
I was a little skeptical about the Raxter when I assembled it and put a bike on it. The front wheel has just a tad bit of wobble in it Originally I thought this was an issue with road bike tires since they are so thin. After trying my mountain bike and my 29'er, though, the wobble persisted and I pretty much wrote it off. I emailed Mike @ Raxter about the wobble and he confirmed it, told me it was no big deal and not to worry about it. Ive used the Raxter on two different occasions now traveling pretty good distances and everything has been great.
The Raxter also has a couple of other advantages over the competition. It's about 20#s lighter than both the Thule and the Saris equivalents. I'd bet the Thelma is lighter than the Raxter but as I no longer have my Thelma, I can't confirm that. Beings that the Thelma was junk, it's sort of a non issue anyway.
The Raxter is also cheaper than the competition. The double bike rack is $329 versus $379.00 for the Thule T2 and $359 for the Saris CycleOn. The CyleOn Pro, which has tool less installation is $439.99.
One thing worth mentioning is that the Raxter is not equipped with a way to lock the bikes to the rack. This could be easily resolved by adding a couple of steel loops somewhere on the rack to run a cable through. I just ran mine through both bikes and looped it around the rack a couple of times. Not as elegant but should be effective.
In the rack business, Raxter is definitely a dark horse. In my state (NC), there are no dealers so I assumed the odds of seeing one would be nil. I actually saw one at a ride I went to today, tho. I would wholeheartedly recommend the Raxter over pretty much any other rack Ive used. Every rack has it's own quirks.. some worse than others. My complaints with the Raxter are really trivial in comparison with the Thule and the Saris units. It holds the bikes very well, I didnt have to cut the crap out of the wheel trays to get the rack to fold up, it doesn't drag going down steep hills... I think it's going to be a keeper.