Thule EasyFold XT 2 Review – Worth the Hype or Not?

A bicycle rack is essential to carry your bike through hills to enjoy your rides there. Many racks claim to carry bicycles easily and safely. One of those popular racks includes Thule EasyFold XT2, which claims to be one of the best bike racks. But is it?

So here we are, giving you a detailed Thule EasyFold XT2 review in which we will share its assembly, durability, compatibility, and bike holding capacity. In the end, we’ll tell you if it’s worth buying or not to help you make the buying decision.  

A Detailed Thule Easyfold XT 2 Review

Compact Design

The first and foremost thing we noticed was its sleek yet compact design. Its foldable sideboards allow it to be as small as medium-sized luggage. It only weighs 45 pounds (20 kilograms), making it adequate and easy to carry.

When closed, it has dimensions of 31 inches length x 12 inches width x 26 inches height. Because of its compact nature, you can easily store it in small car trunks without occupying much space. For sure, that’s a big pro for us.

 No Assembly

Many of us dread assembling complicated gadgets. But not now, because when it came in the package, we were not only surprised but amused that it didn’t require any assembly. You pull it out of the box and spread its sideboards.

Even opening it is not a challenging task. There are no screws or bolts required to attach its sideboards. All you need to do is push them sideways and open and lock them in their place. And when you are done with it, pull them towards the center and make it compact again.

Simple Transport

On the base of the packed bike holder, you’ll find two wheels. It helps you to move it around without carrying it. These wheels ran smoothly without wobbling on rocky surfaces, saving us from back pain.

Easy Attachment

You can attach this rack to two types of receivers. One can be 1.25 inches, and the other can be 2 inches. The attachment is effortless. From the rack’s side, you will see a rod with a built-in hook on its lateral side.

There’s a pinhole on both the rack rod and receiver. When you pass that attachment rod through the receiver, they’ll have their side holes positioned in the same place. Once it happens, you’ll pass the hook through that hole to lock the rack with the car like Corvettes.

Isn’t that easy? We found attaching the rack pretty convenient. Even if you’re a beginner, you’ll find it easy to install without needing any extra screws or bolts.

Wobbling

We’ve seen that many bike holders can become wobbly while going through rocky rides. This is because their attachment is not appropriately secured. But not with this one because of an anti-wobble knob present at the attachment site.

This knob is opposite to the lever and is used to tighten the lever attachment support. After attaching the bike holder to the car, you can rotate it to tighten the lever-receiver lock. Once it’s suitable enough that your bike holder doesn’t wobble on moving, you can lock it. The lock is on the knob, and you can secure it with the keys.

After locking it, we wiggled it and moved the car through a rough surface. To our surprise, it didn’t even budge a bit. It secured our expensive e-bikes, and you can take your car through a rocky mountain without worrying that your bike stand might fall.

Platform

Talking about the place we’re going to place bicycles, the platform is comprehensive and hitch-designed. Both sideboards are curved to hold the wheels of bicycles. These wheel boards are 4.5 inches thick, easily incorporating thin or chunky tires.

Once you open it completely, it has dimensions of 48.4 inches length x 25 inches width x 26.7 inches height. These dimensions are good enough to hold a bicycle of any size.

Moreover, even with SUVs or wagons, it doesn’t extend from the sides of the cars. So, we drove without worrying about hitting it or our bikes from the sides.  

This platform perfectly accommodates any wheels, even if you have giant bicycles with thick tires or smaller ones.

 Holding Capacity

It easily holds two bikes at a time. Its weight holding capacity is a total of 130lbs (60 kilograms). This capacity is good enough as most bikes are lighter and don’t weigh this much. So you can easily carry a pair of mountain bikes, e-bikes, and a light set of motor-driven heavy bicycles.

We recommend you not exceed the weight limit because it will weaken the rack’s internal structure and decrease its life and durability.

Bike Holding Clamps 

For us, the most crucial test is how perfectly it holds all types of bikes. So for that perfect grip, there are two clamp bike holders for each bicycle. One clamp is short of supporting the nearer bike, and one is long to grip the second bike.

We liked that the brackets of these clamps are adjustable. That means you can change its site according to your bike needs. Many battery-driven e-bikes have a battery or motor on the front body. So, you reposition the clamp through its bracket to find a new attachment site and re-tighten the knob.

In addition, the clamp jaws are pretty broad, and they can hold any frame with a diameter between 0.8-3.2 inches, which makes it versatile for many bikes. They are beak-shaped, so they grip the bike’s frame well.

If your bike has a carbon fiber frame, and you don’t want it to get scratched from the clamp, you can get a carbon fiber frame protector with them. It will help you to prevent scratches in your frame. Just place the frame before clamping the bicycle, and you’re done.

Cannot Over-Tight the Clamp

Many bike racks can damage the bike’s structure by tightening the clamp too much. So, you must make the clamps neither too loose nor too tight. These clamps already know when their hold is perfect for getting that perfect grip.

Once the grip is tight enough that there’s no more space left for tightening, your clamps stop the compressing on the frame. The knob gets loose and locks itself. It protects your bike frame from damage. 

Strong Wheel Straps

Securing the frame isn’t enough. Retaining the wheels is necessary so that the bike doesn’t move around. For this, you’ll get four-wheel straps, two for front wheels and two for rear ones. These straps are about an inch wide and quickly pass through wheels to secure them.

To tighten the straps, there are fasteners on four sides of it. Once you pass the strap through the wheel and fastener, pull the strap to tighten its grip if it remains secure and doesn’t get loose through the journey.

When you want to unbuckle those straps, gently pull the fastener. It’s that easy! When not in use, these areas get tucked in the inner side of this platform, which we liked because it looked neat when not in use.

Lock to Secure Bikes

During camping, we are worried that our bikes are safe enough that no one can take them. Many bicycle holders we’ve used cannot give an extra layer of security, but XT2 can. Every clamp and knob contains a lock, providing you with a key.

When you are done fitting your bike and the rack, you lock its clamps with the key. So no one is able to take it out. The attachment knob also has a lock, so the bikes and rack don’t wobble on rugged roads.

License Plate Holder

Bike racks tend to hide your license plate, and the worst thing we’ve faced because of this is roadside pull-ups by cops. But not now because this bike rack has space for a license plate attachment at its back. Screwing up our license plate was pretty easy and took us a few minutes.

We reattached the license plate to the rack. It had adequate space to hold the plate and was prominent from far away, keeping you away from legal issues. We know it’s a minor detail, but it can be helpful for long road trips while carrying your bike.

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Reflectors

In trucks and SUVs, you’ll find rear lights to reveal your car at night while driving. But how will you tell other drivers that you have an additional big gadget attached to your car? Don’t worry; this rack has red reflectors on either side.

Just like its function, it reflects the light to the drivers behind you, telling them to maintain a reasonable distance between their car and yours. It keeps your rack and car away from getting crashed by other drivers. These reflectors are big enough to be visible from a distance.

One-step Trunk Access

People ask us how we will reach our car’s trunk when we have such a big rack attached to it. Thule kept this under consideration and installed a rack tilt mechanism to solve this problem.

There’s a lever just below the license plate holder, which you pull down and pull the rack towards you. At the same time, the rack will tilt to give you access to your truck’s or car’s trunk. The rack tilts to 50°, giving you a lot of space to reach your car’s back.

 Loading Ramp

EasyFold XT2 offers a built-in loading ramp for your bikes if you own heavy bicycles that are hard to carry. You’ll find the ramp at the base of the middle platform. You have to pull the middle board to move out the ramp.

After taking it out, you attach it to one of the two-slit presents on the front of the wheel holding platform. You gently push it into the slit, and it attaches there. Then you can walk your bike through that ramp and do the same for another bike. It prevents you from weightlifting, saving your back from severe damage.

With the same attachment method, you also unload the bike in the same way if you want to. It saved our energy and our muscles from the sprain.

Better Aerodynamics

An extra attachment to your truck or car has a prominent effect on its aerodynamics. That means you have to drive your ride considering that extra gadget. However, with this bike rack, it is not the case.

It is smartly designed not to alter your car’s aerodynamics, and all its boundaries stay the same or within the car’s shape. Its height is not more than the standard SUVs or trucks, so air pressure does not affect it. You can quickly drive your car at whichever speed without worrying about hitting or bumping your rack.

Thule EasyFold XT2 – Is It Worth Buying?

After exploring this entire bike rack and having a detailed look at its features, the question arises if this rack is worth buying. Well, it is an expensive rack, but we think it’s a good buy when exploring how many exclusive facilities it has.

Considering its simple portability, easy installation and usage, ultimate bike protection, and locking systems, we recommend that any bike lover get a hand on it. And we are optimistic that you will enjoy using it as much as we did. So if you prefer quality over quantity, this bike rack is for you.

Conclusion

In today’s edit, we gave a detailed Thule EasyFold XT2 review in which we discussed all its features. It is an easy-to-install bike rack that doesn’t need any bolts or screws for attachment. Its compact structure and base wheels make it easy to carry with you.

It can hold two bikes and has a clamp holder to grip the frame and straps to tighten the wheels. All clamps and knobs are lockable and secure throughout the journey. It comes with a license plate holder, a pair of reflectors, and a loading ramp and is tiltable to have trunk access.

Overall, it’s good to buy as it has many facilities that standard bike racks don’t have. Check out its price and availability on this date.