Yakima Stage Two Hitch Rack – Transport Your Bikes In Style

In a perfect world, I’d walk out my front door an be at the start of every ride. In the real world, that doesn’t always happen. My training rides almost always start at home, but events are somewhere else. To get you and your bike there, depending on your vehicle, you might have a few different options. Over the years, I’ve used various roof racks, truck racks, popped the wheels off and stuffed the bike in the backseat with a blanket to keep everything clean, and more recently moved to trunk racks. Yakima offers many of these options, but the Stage Two is their premium hitch rack to take two bikes to where ever you need to go, yet still looks at home on a high-end SUV or sedan.

The Stage Two is offered in a few different options. For colors, you have Vapor, a lighter silver color, or anthracite, a dark grey. Both are available in 2″ hitch mounts, but since my Subaru Impreza is only rated for a 1.25 hitch, I had to go with the anthracite. For the 2″ options, you can also add a +2 kit to make it a four bike rack.

The rack is pretty straight forward. There is some assembly required to mount the trays, the arms, and the rear wheel strap and mounting it all to the base, but the instructions are pretty straight forward. I’d say it probably took me about an hour to do since the hitch was already installed, and comes with the only hex wrench you’ll need. If needed, pick one up from your local dealer, and they can probably build and install it for you.

Once built up, mounting into the hitch was simple. Slide the stinger in, put the hitch pin through, and then use the SpeedKnob 2.0 at the opposite end to tighten everything up before locking it in place. Even with about a season and a half of use, I’ve never had to tighten it, and the rack is firmly in place still. For a 1.25″ hitch rack, it feels very solid, even at higher speeds on the highway with a road bike with 60mm deep wheels poking out on the side, or two gravel bikes mounted up. The 1.25″ is 64 lbs, while the 2″ is 66 lbs, and they are rated to carry 60 or 70 lbs on each tray respectively, depending on the hitch size.

Each tray has its own StrongArm hook to lock your bike in place, with an adjustable sliding tray with strap for the rear wheel. The front wheel sits in it’s own cradle, and you can swing the arm front or back, and raise the hook up and down to find the perfect place to lock down on the tire. To release, squeeze in the large lever where the hook meets the arm and slide it up and down. When not in use, the arm folds down on the tray and is out of the way. The rear straps are long enough to work with a 76mm tall road wheel and up to a 52″ wheelbase, and can also accommodate up to a 3.25″ tire, or up to a 5″ fat bike tire with an optional fat bike kit. Each StrongArm hook also has an integrated cable lock you can loop through your frame and back to a post to lock your bikes up. All locks on the rack all use Yakima’s SKS (Same Key System) locking cores, allowing you to only have to carry one key for all of your Yakima products. There is also a loop on the frame you can use other chain or cable locks with for additional security.

When it comes to racking two bikes, the Stage Two uses tiered and adjustable offset trays to minimize interference, even with flat bars. The offset trays can be spaced narrow to try and hide the bikes behind the vehicle as much as possible, or spaced wider to allow for more room. I kept mine narrow since I was using it on a smaller car. You can still access the trunk by folding the tray even further down from it’s level position, allowing access to a rear hatch.

When not in use, the rack easily folds up to reduce your footprint behind your vehicle. The tilt lever at the end of the base is easy to use, whether you are tilting the rack up or down. It does have a bit of height to it that can block your license plate and lights. More on that below.

That pretty much covers the specs of the rack, but how is it in the real world?

On my Subaru Impreza, the rack definitely looks a bit on the larger side. While it doesn’t add much depth to the car when folded up, it adds a few feet when folded down, which is understandable considering it is carrying two bikes. It’s about on par with a Rocky Mounts rack I had previously reviewed on a Honda CR-V, and might be a little more at home on a larger vehicle. There are a few challenges with using it on a smaller car. The first is, it can block your lights and plate. While I haven’t had any issues with the police, the rack does make it hard to see your plate, and even my rear brake, turn, and reverse lights. One the CR-V, with higher mounted lights, it wouldn’t be an issue. To address this, Yakima does offer a light kit that you can connect to a trailer wiring harness, which also includes a mount for your plate. This light kit adds brake lights, turn signals, and a light to illuminate your plate, so you stay incompliance with local DOT regulations. The kit is an extra $199, and you may also need to pick up a trailer wiring harness if you do not already have one installed.

The other challenge I faced is bottoming out on speed bumps or steep angles. Going over speed bumps, I have to slow down a bit more than I usually would, or I’ll hear the stinger and SpeedKnob hit. While the rack has taken a few good whacks, everything is still in good working order, besides some small cosmetic scrapes. In the past, I’ve used another rack from a different brand that happened to hug the back end of the Impreza a little better, and offered a little more clearance, while also using a smaller rack. Conversely, that rack didn’t feel as stable and didn’t offer as much clearance between bikes compared to the Stage Two.

With that out of the way, time for the positives. The Stage Two is a very solid rack. The SpeedKnob system makes it very easy to get the rack mounted, and it also uses the SKS cores to prevent anyone from tampering with it. The StrongArm hooks always kept my bikes locked in place on the tire, and did not require the rack to touch the frame or fork. On some racks, the rear wheel strap is not long enough for larger tires or deep rims, but with the Stage Two, I was able to lock a Token Konax Tri Disc with a 30mm tire without issue or having to deflate the tires. The straps themselves are on a pivot, making them easy to flip out of the way when loading, or flip them back in place to lock the wheel down. The other big plus is the rack just looks good. It has a premium finish on it where it will look at home on a nice Audi, BMW, or whatever your car of choice is. Other racks I’ve tested and used are far more utilitarian looking, and might not look to the standards of a higher end vehicle. On my Subaru, it looked classy.

The Stage Two is $799 for either color or hitch size. The +2 add on goes for an additional $599 to a 2″ option.

Overall, it’s a great rack. The cons I listed have more to do with the car I matched it with versus being true issues. If I had a Subaru Crosstrek for example, which is essentially a slightly lifted Impreza, I would have much less of an issue with bottoming out. As for blocking the plate or lights, the light kit would solve the issue, or a car with higher lights would not have the same issue. Instead, it is functional, solid, easy to live with, and looks great.

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