RockyMounts BackStage

As soon as you’ve experienced the RockyMounts BackStage, you can’t go back. We’ve used the full 180° swing almost every time we go out with the bikes. We’ve been using it for about 3 months and have fallen in love with it. It’s quite heavy and awkward to carry.

This rack is a big thumbs up for me, double-double thumbs up for Wrangler owners. This is a solid rack and I have full confidence I could throw a couple of heavy bikes up there with no issue. The not-so-obvious advantage is, it allows you to access your bikes from both sides.

Mounted on a Jeep Wrangler. One 55 lb e-bike. The rack does have some movement but it feels very natural and not unwanted or worrying. I was more than satisfied with how little rattle there was. Thumbs UP!

The RockyMounts BackStage is my bike rack of choice. It allows me a little more flexibility, to put my TT bike on there with my HED Jet 90 training wheels. I am super careful about clamping those wheels because it is just a carbon fairing.

With a bike on the bike rack, you can open the back door. Plenty of clearance. There’s about an inch clearance between the closest point of the bike rack and the spare tire.

I do recommend this rack. I like it a lot. The problem with this unit is that, if handlebars are wide, bikes will tend to hit each other and you won’t be able to get them both on the unit.

It swings away very nicely. There’s a lot of different swing-away bike racks out there but they don’t handle e-bikes. It accommodates the fat tires, accommodates me being able to open my doors in the back very easily, which is really why I got this bike rack.

It took me quite a while to figure out my setup, how it was going to accommodate the back of my van where I could open up the doors, and also had to hold the weight of an e-bike.

We have driven over 20,000 miles in the last 10 months. We are still happy with this setup and would recommend it to anyone. It has broken a couple of times: 100% related to the use of a hitch extension. The warranty clearly indicates that this situation is not covered.

The bike rack did not survive. Those hitch extensions really amplify the forces on the bike rack. This cracked, you can see the fatigue marks.

We couldn’t put it directly in on the bumper on the hitch rack. We had to buy an 18” extension and then put the rack on there. RockyMounts does not recommend using anything other than the 1/8” extension that you can get from them.

It moves from side to side, the release pin moves back and forth with some play in there. There is some rattling.