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Bikes are great forms of transportation that you can ride all around town to get to work, run errands, or just to let off some steam.
However, bike rides around town can become rather tedious and repetitive if you have exhausted all possible route options.
For this reason, you might want to begin taking your bike further distances to enjoy different viewpoints and trails that your country has to offer.
Luckily, bike racks are very popular and reliable pieces of equipment that can be mounted to almost any vehicle.
Today we’ll be focusing on the Swagman XC Cross-Country 2-Bike Hitch Mount Rack, which is a hassle-free rack that houses up to two bikes at once.
If you don’t need a large and bulky bike rack, this compact option is ideal for you.
Let’s take a deeper look into the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack and whether it’s the right choice for you, shall we?
Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack
Swagman is a reputable brand known for its versatility and quality of its bike racks. The XC2 Hitch Mount is no different, with two upright arms that are used to keep the bikes in place.
You can use the mount with lots of different bikes, so you don’t have to worry about your bike being too large or wide. In fact, the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack can house bike frames up to 59cm tall.
The rack is covered in a special coating that prevents the bike from getting scratched during your journey. Plus, the coating will also prevent the rack from falling victim to rust or corrosion from continuous harsh weather conditions.
Like with any bike rack, this model takes a while to set up. However, it shouldn’t take you an incredibly long time and you won’t want to pull your hair out halfway through.
The Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack fits hitches of 1 ¼ to 2 inches. You can use the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack on cars, trucks, vants, and SUVs.
However, it cannot be used with RVs or motorhomes so make sure that you’re not using it on the wrong vehicle. The maximum capacity of the mount is 35 pounds per bike with 20 to 29-inch tires.
Installation and Removal
As we mentioned above, the assembly of the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack is very easy to assemble and install. Within the box, you’ll get a partially assembled mount and some very easy to read instructions.
Overall, the rack should not take longer than 10 minutes to finish assembling it. You’ll only need one screwdriver to assemble the rack.
Installing the rack is as simple to do as the assembly, and the removal of the rack is similarly easy to do so.
The mounting rack does require tools to install and remove it from your vehicle to ensure that it does not slip off as you’re driving, and there is a hitch pin in place just in case the hardware falters during use.
When you remove the mounting rack you can carry it easily as it only weighs 25 pounds. You can also collapse it to an extent so that it takes up less room while you’re storing it.
You can often store it in your car trunk without any hassle at all. While this might be a little less convenient than keeping it mounted onto your car, it will prevent the rack from weathering so quickly.
Ease of Use
The Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack is incredibly easy to use and can be used daily in most cases. The rack is covered with a light casing that prevents your bike from being damaged by the friction caused between the two metals; however, this will wear down quickly the more you use your bike rack.
Driving on smooth roads will help protect your bike from colliding with the metal rack, but this only works to an extent and is not always a reliable form of protection.
When adding your bikes onto the bike rack you will need to adjust the wheel trays to ensure that they’re secure. This is easily done by adjusting the plastic knob and sliding the metal loops.
The clamps that house your bikes are sturdy and durable, yet it can be slightly difficult to use sometimes as the clamp is vertically aligned.
This means that you’ll need to lift the bike and position it between the clamp and the vehicle, which can be a little awkward depending on the weight of your bike.
Security
Unfortunately, there are no security features included with the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack. With a bike rack, we might want to see some locks to prevent your bikes from being able to be removed by anyone other than yourself.
There is also no lock to keep the rack attached to your vehicle, which means that anyone with a screwdriver could come along and remove the rack when you’re away from your car.
This means that you’ll more than likely have to remove the rack every time you finish using it if you don’t have a private secured garage to store your car.
We consider this as the biggest downfall for the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack, as you don’t want to worry about your bikes or rack going missing when you’re not looking.
Durability
The main material used to create the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack is metal, with plastic knobs for adjustments and rubber coatings to prevent your bike from becoming scratched. For this reason, the durability of this bike rack is reasonably impressive.
Moreover, the metal is powder-coated to prevent harsh weather conditions from corroding the metal too quickly. This prevents rust and deterioration of the quality, which allows you to use the bike rack for longer without having to replace it.
Although some bike racks offer you a rough guide on how much weight you should use your bike rack with, we recommend that you stick to the 35 pounds per bike with the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack.
The material and hardware suggest that it would suffer under more weight than this. So, if you want to keep this rack for several years, stick to the instructions.
Versatility
We enjoyed the amount of versatility the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack offers the user. As we said before, Swagman is known for its versatile products, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that this is where the rack prevailed the most.
The rack can accommodate wheelbases any size from 15 to 52 inches, which allows you to use the rack with a variety of different bikes.
The tires can be 20 to 29 inches in diameter and up to 3.5 inches in width, so you might not be able to use the rack with thicker-wheeled bikes.
The vertical bar on the rack can ratchet from 15 to 29 inches, allowing you to carry smaller or larger bikes. This is excellent in case you want to take a child’s bike or a BMX model rather than a large mountain bike.
Additional Accessories
Swagman does offer a few accessories that can be used with the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack to increase usability and effectiveness; however, these are sold separately and therefore will require additional purchase.
The first is a Fat Tire Wheel Tray that allows you to carry bikes with thicker wheel widths.
The other additional accessories concern the security of the bike rack. The Locking Hitch Pin allows you to lock your rack onto the vehicle, ensuring that no one can get to your bike or rack while your back is turned.
The Locking Hitch Pin and Security Cable are similar to the former security measure, but the cable allows you to also lock the bikes to the rack for double the security.
The issue we have with this is that you’re already paying a premium price for your bike rack, and presumably your bikes were also not cheap. So, you’re unlikely to want to pay an additional price for something as basic as security locks.
We understand that the Fat Tire Wheel Tray is not necessarily needed by everyone, but we certainly think that the security measures should be included within the initial price of the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack.
Summary
Overall, the Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack is a reasonably good bike rack for a vast variety of bikes. There is plenty of versatility ensuring that you can use it for a range of bike shapes and sizes.
While two bikes is a little restrictive for families, this is more than enough for others.
The installation process is very simple and won’t take too long for you to complete. We have an issue with the fact that you’ll have to remove the rack after every use unless you want to spend an additional sum of money on the security measures.
The Swagman XC2 Hitch Mount Bike Rack is a durable and reliable bike rack that is sure to last you for many years. The only issue that we found with it is the lack of security, but this can easily be rectified with additional Swagman accessories.
