We travel with our bikes on every trip. When we got our new tow vehicle we decided to move them from the bed to the trailer tongue. On our Nissan Frontier we used the Swagman fork mount and put the bikes in the truck bed. This worked really well, but took up a ton of room that we could have used for other things. So, with the higher towing capacity and tongue weight rating of our Colorado Diesel, we decided to go with the Jack-It.
It looks pretty scary having the bikes up high like that but they stay pretty stable. I know since even when I’m towing I’m always checking the rear view mirror – so I’m looking at them a lot.
Net-net we’re happy with the Jack-It, but I’m not sure that I’ll still be able to get the bikes up there in another 10 years. Time will tell.
Pros
We’re using room that isn’t otherwise used
The rack is very good quality
Cons
It takes a lot of upper body strength to get the bikes in place. If you, or you and your travel partner can’t lift the bikes over your head, you can’t use this rack.
If you store your trailer on a hill (like we do) you have to pull the bikes before you park it. Otherwise they’re just too high to get to.
It isn’t easy getting them on and off without hitting the front of your trailer. If you’re careful its fine, but it is a bit of work.
If you want to rotate your power jack head so it doesn’t interfere with the bed gate, you can’t do that and use the Jack-It.
Our first trailer was a Jayco Jayfeather Sport 197. It was our introduction to camping but it had some shortcomings. So we sat down and made a list of features we wanted in an upgrade. It was a fairly short list but it took us months to narrow down to the trailer we wanted Our…
It’s amazing how many paper towels we go through on a camping trip. We put one of these holders outside and one inside. They have a “clicky” movement so the towel roll doesn’t move unless you really mean it to. This is great for dealing with road vibration. Note: I installed these with the screws…
The 215RBK is my first trailer with a water heater that uses both gas and electric. Its a great feature and it was on my must have. However, once I got the trailer, using it wasn’t as easy as I thought. The instructions are as clear as mud! I read a lot of facebook posts…
We’re really happy with our Coachmen Apex 215RBK but there are a few design flaws. Early this summer we discovered one of the biggest.
Almost no cold air from the AC gets past the entertainment center into the bedroom!!! This made for a very hot night until my wife figured out if we rotated the TV 90 degrees so it sat between our feet then the air could get through. This was a genius work around.
I’m old. I lean on things. I happened to lean on the outdoor socket on my 215RBK when I stood up from placing the X-Chocks and it moved. A lot. I realized that they were using the foam on the outlet cover to seal the giant hole in the side of the trailer. And since…
I hate having the hoses and shore power cables sitting on the ground. I saw a picture of this on the internet and I thought it was brilliant. I’ve since lost the link of the original, but here’s my version. To make this work, I combined two really good (but still inexpensive) suction cups and…