QuikrStuff Mach 2 Bike Rack

[Bicycle Belle Ding Ding!]

I’m over here still riding the wave of joy from the New Yorker Rivendell article. Nothing could be better for them than this kind of good publicity, I think. But of course the secret rack I ordered arrived yesterday, and I want to tell you about it because I’m SURE there are more of us looking for racks for our Rivendells.

My Saris Freedom is wearing out. It held 4 bikes and was good at not damaging them, but there was just so…much…plastic…on that rack. Things were wearing and it was getting scary on the interstate. I got a new vehicle, and I didn’t want the Saris dinging up the bumper like it did on my minivan. Now was the time to shop for a rack.

I looked high and low. Besides being long wheelbasers, and mixtes, all my bikes are fendered. It’s a lot to ask of a rack. 

Turns out fenders are the most limiting factor in rack offerings, which quickly narrowed my search results. The two brands that rose to the top of my list were 1Up and QuikrStuff. 

History, as I found it online, and which may have errors: 1Up was started by one Cal Philips who recruited a 2nd man. There was some sort of dispute, a patent expiration, and it led to a legal battle which saw Cal leave and draw up plans for a new and improved rack. With a stack of new patents, Cal made the Mach2 for QuikrStuff. I liked that the rack was the evolution of the highly-lauded 1Up, was full of colorful bits, and was 100% tool-less. I cannot emphasize enough how tired I am of wrenching on that dang Saris and listening to the tools rattle around in the back of my vehicles.

The Mach2 arrived yesterday. I have pored over the website, the manual and all videos the company offers. I am one of those people who needs to understand forward and backward how something works before I feel confident assembling and using it. 

I have mounted all 3 bikes (one at an time) and am reasonably confident that I know how to load them safely. There is a learning curve to how to finesse moving heavy, sliding parts where you need them to go, and I have taken a bit of a beating doing it. This is the joy and the sorrow of an all-metal rack. Ok, here comes the 2nd post, which will have commentary with PICS!

Leah

[Leah Peterson]

I bought the main rack, plus 2 additional add-ons, for a total of 3 bike carrying capacity. I also bought 2 wheel locks to try. 

Here is the main unit, which holds one bike. See the fun colors on all the moving parts? It makes them easy to find and you know I love color.

Here is an add-on. 

Here is how the rack looks when folded up on the vehicle. It’s nice not to have my big Saris blocking my rear back up camera.

Here’s my #1 favorite bike. You can see that I had to move the spool down to snug up against the rear fender. It is reasonably secure like this, but I’m going to always use a Voile strap on the rear wheel because a bump could, in theory, bounce that rear tire up and out of that tray. 

The mermaid Platypus is the same size, so I didn’t take photos of that one. But here’s the little 50 Platypus, and its smaller wheels and long rear fender have made it less secure on this rack. You absolutely MUST use a Voile strap here. And when you do, it really is very secure.

These are the spools. Very adjustable for all sizes of tires. Even ones for your little cherubs! 

Here’s the situation with the rear. Quikr says they want the spool to be at least at 90 degrees; so draw an imaginary line from the axle and you want your spool north of there. I really couldn’t do better than this because the fender rubbed on the metal spool, which made my skin crawl. 

So I added this pretty pink little Voile strap! I had Quikr look at these photos and R said my bikes are actually loaded up really well. The strap should make this secure. I will keep one in each bike bag and some extras in my Telluride.

I do have a couple complaints.  When loading and unloading bikes, you need two hands - one to hold the lever, and one to pull the arm off the tire. But that leaves the bike to wobble and possibly fall off the rack - I’d prefer one arm on the BIKE. But you can’t. 

The rack folds up nicely but it is hard to grab the arms and open them up to put them on the receiver. Awkward. Difficult. Very heavy. You’re holding your arms far from your body and trying to stabilize the rack before it’s on the receiver. I can barely fold up the add-ons by myself. 

Tightening the tire spools is frustrating and exacting. You can’t close the rack arms and fold them up against the vehicle without returning the spools to the top of the arm. You can’t just leave the spools where you had them; you have to figure out how they fit with the bike all over again the next time you use the rack. The levers are all metal and you need to apply a lot of hand pressure. My hand feels bruised. During one maneuver (I forget which), I actually applied so much pressure I felt white hot pain in my palm and I think I heard a small pop. Please, oh please do not be a tendon… I have matching quarter-sized bruises to both of my forearms. I don’t even know what caused this but again, it’s an all-metal rack. You’re taking some damage.

I have not put more than one bike at a time on yet. I am worried the baskets/wide bars will hit, but I can’t worry about that yet. This is enough for now. I’ll report back as I use the rack more. I’m driving 3.5 hours north to meet The Lone Wolf and ride the Leelanau Peninsula this weekend, so that will be a good test.

Leah

On Sep 17, 2024, at 7:47 PM, Bicycle Belle Ding Ding! <jonasa...@gmail.com> wrote:

I’m over here still riding the wave of joy from the New Yorker Rivendell article. Nothing could be better for them than this kind of good publicity, I think. But of course the secret rack I ordered arrived yesterday, and I want to tell you about it because I’m SURE there are more of us looking for racks for our Rivendells.

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[Ryan Bolesta]

Hi Leah,

I am currently looking for a hitch-mounted rack myself, and am considering the 1UP or the Quickrstuff racks. I'm super glad to have found this post with such a detailed description! Now that you've had the rack for a while, do you have any additional thoughts/experiences with it? Has the fender situation with the Voile strap been working out well? I've seen that some people will put a piece of cushion around the rack and close it directly over the fender, although I'm worried it would still be enough force to crack my plastic SKS fenders!

Thanks,

Ryan

[Leah Peterson]

Hi Ryan!

I really love the Quickr rack. I’d recommend the 2” hitch for sure; there was a recent thread about a guy using a 1 1/4” hitch on a 1Up and it snapped, causing his Atlantis and 2 Surlys to die ugly, premature deaths on the interstate this May.

I think my first impressions were pretty accurate in the end, as I still think the same today as when I wrote that thread. You absolutely need a Voile strap on the back wheel of fendered bikes, but once strapped, they are very secure. I’ve read about padding the fender too, but I’d rather use the strap and not mess with deforming the fender. 

The Quickr website has to be one of the finest I’ve seen re: product inquiry. And when I had additional questions they were quick to respond via email. I have been very happy. 

Another pleasant surprise is that bikes play well together on the rack - not the case with my previous Saris. Here is my son’s monster 59 Clem and my 50 Platypus. 3 racks between our 2 bikes, and our baskets are on the same side and we were still able to make this work on a long roadtrip. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions!

On Jun 23, 2025, at 1:34 PM, Ryan Bolesta <rya...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Leah,

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/052f7ef5-630d-4390-ae4e-5b10c7506f02n%40googlegroups.com.

[Dan Payne]

What length voile strap did you use? 15” is the longest one Riv sells. Would that be long enough?

[Leah Peterson]

I use the 20. I ordered a couple 15 inch Voiles and have not found them good for anything. You can find them all over the place online.

On Jun 29, 2025, at 1:20 PM, Dan Payne <kra...@gmail.com> wrote:

What length voile strap did you use? 15” is the longest one Riv sells. Would that be long enough?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/19538956-36a8-4566-9df8-cba785496962n%40googlegroups.com.

[Joseph Kolker]

I have the Mach 2 with 2" hitch and one add-on as well and am a big fan. I have mostly used it with my Roadini and with a kid bike, but have also used it a couple times with my wife's fendered Platypus. For the bike with fenders, I have sort of slowly but snugly brought the arm down over the fender, and then reinforced the bike with the voile strap they sell and with the bike locks they sell (which get threaded through the rack arms and the spokes of the wheels). I've only done this for short rides so far, so for a longer highway ride with more jostling I will probably use the approved method of voile strap + arm below the fender.

One thing that I can't reasonably complain about, but to give a heads up on, is that after leaving my rack on my car this winter in New York, the lock that secures the rack to the hitch rusted over. It is obviously the best practice to take the rack off in the winter if you are not using it, but I was using it and do not have an easy place to store, and was lulled into complacency because there was very little salt on the roads this season, and I was keeping the rack as a whole clean, so thought I was safe. When I tried to remove the rack at the end of the season for a deep clean, I found that the blue lock cylinder had rusted internally and couldn't get the rack off the car. In order to loosen it, I sprayed some WD-40, which loosened the lock and cleared the rust, but after doing so I couldn't get the lock to lock again. I emailed Quikrstuff and in very short order they sent me a replacement lock component under warranty at no charge, which I found pretty easy to replace. To avoid this situation to begin with, though, they recommend spraying the lock mechanism with lock dry lube (not any kind of oil lubricant--so WD40 not recommended), which I am going to do going forward (in addition to removing/storing the rack more frequently).

I'm attaching a couple of pics of how it looks loaded with Plat + Roadini (not with all the voile straps and locks though) and what the lock component looked like when rusted before Quikrstuff replaced it for me.

Joey

[Leah Peterson]

I noticed the rust problem, too. Good to know there’s a fix. I don’t even know what dry lube is - would that be at the bike shop or an automotive store? I think I sprayed mine with T9 and it came loose ok. But I need to treat it or else I’ll be in your boat, and I bet I won’t find it as easy to install the new lock as you did. 

Out of curiosity, why do you load the bikes both facing the same way? I do mine like this:

On Jul 1, 2025, at 9:44 AM, Joseph Kolker <jrko...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have the Mach 2 with 2" hitch and one add-on as well and am a big fan. I have mostly used it with my Roadini and with a kid bike, but have also used it a couple times with my wife's fendered Platypus. For the bike with fenders, I have sort of slowly but snugly brought the arm down over the fender, and then reinforced the bike with the voile strap they sell and with the bike locks they sell (which get threaded through the rack arms and the spokes of the wheels). I've only done this for short rides so far, so for a longer highway ride with more jostling I will probably use the approved method of voile strap + arm below the fender.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/cd6bdaea-7136-46ff-bade-3268f752b4a1n%40googlegroups.com.

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[Joseph Kolker]

Hi Leah, I suspect the application of lock dry lube may be more helpful as a preventive measure than once it's rusted, but not sure either way. I'll forward you a message the Quikrstuff sent to their email list that shows exactly what to buy. I got it at a hardware store. Also, it may only be because it was still under warranty, but the Quikrstuff guy I talked to about replacing the lock mechanism told me that if I couldn't figure out how to replace the internal mechanism, they could instead send me a whole new lock cylinder. There would still be some work involved in putting that on the rack, but that might make it a little easier.

Re: facing same way, no reason! Suppose I should experiment with the way you have it. But at least with these two bikes of mine there was just no issue having them facing the same way; they fit easily.

Joey

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/5998158D-243D-43EF-8FBC-275B8B508604%40gmail.com.

[Glen]

Well this string of posts just cost me a lot of money, but I'm sure that going the Quickr route over One Up will be worth it in the long haul.