VelociRAX is best known for making some of the best vertical hitch bike racks on the market. I recently tested the brand’s 412 MAX rack and was very impressed by its stability, high weight limit, and incredibly user-friendly loading process. But so far, the brand hasn’t produced any platform-style hitch racks. It appears that’s about to change, however, and VelociRAX will soon be offering its version of an e-bike and moto-compatible hitch rack, known as the RAXzilla.
The brand has been teasing the new rack on its social media channels for the past week or so, with numerous posts showing it in action. From these posts, the new rack appears to be production-ready, although it doesn’t have a product page on the website yet, just a landing page to sign up for early info and preorder access. But one thing is clear: VelociRAX has applied its user-friendly bike-loading design ethos to a heavy-duty tray-style hitch rack.
Since we don’t have all the details yet, here’s what we’ve gathered based on the social media posts. It is very clearly a tray/platform-style hitch bike rack, and there are one-bike and two-bike versions. The trays appear to lock in place in the flat/horizontal/transport position and unlock to tilt down toward the passenger side of the vehicle. There is also an integrated loading ramp that slides out — and locks in place — from the end of each tray, making it easy to roll the bike up onto the tray. Plenty of other e-bike-compatible racks work with loading ramps, but none we’ve seen offer the slide-out convenience seen here.
As the bike is rolled into position, its weight tilts the tray back to horizontal, and it locks in place. At the same time, the front wheel activates a hydraulic piston, which raises a wheel arm that sandwiches the front wheel against the opposing front wheel arm. At the other end of the rack, another wheel arm, which also appears to use a hydraulic piston, folds up and secures the rear wheel. We can’t say for sure, but it looks like these piston-actuated wheel arms do the work of securing the wheels for you once activated.
The wheel arms also appear to have a versatile shape and size that can handle anything from skinny road and gravel bike tires up to big, beefy dirt bike tires. And in the case of the latter, they demonstrate the rack with e-motos and gas-powered motos, so we assume it can handle up to ~250 pounds — roughly what a 250cc dirt bike weighs — but that’s speculation. Still, it should be able to handle just about any bike, from road to eMTB to moto. The only things that might present compatibility issues are very small wheels and/or bikes with fenders, given the clamp-arm-style bike attachment system.
Based on the videos, this looks like one of the easiest loading processes of any bike rack we’ve ever seen. You basically just have to tilt the rack, extend the ramp, then roll the bike into position, and you’re done. In fact, one of the videos shows people loading and securing two mountain bikes on the rack in just 6 seconds. It also appears to have a tilt feature to fold it flat against the back of the vehicle to reduce its profile when not in use.
VelociRAX RAXzilla: Coming Soon?
Beyond the limited amount of information we’ve gathered from VelociRAX’s social media posts, there’s even more we don’t know about the RAXzilla. It’s not clear what the rack’s actual weight limits are, how much the rack weighs, when it will be available, or how much it costs.
But it looks impressively versatile, and the loading process appears to be the easiest we’ve seen for any bike, but especially heavy e-bikes. If you’re interested in learning more about the RAXzilla or placing a preorder, head to the VelociRAX website and sign up for updates.
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