Yakima HalfBack 3 Bike Carrier RackEase of Initial Setup:

Grade: Incomplete

We are unable to review this product on the initial setup. The first step in the instruction manual advises you to consult the Yakima website to obtain the optimal hub setting for your vehicle make and model. Our make and model was not present within the system and nobody with Yakima phone support could advise us on how to proceed. So instead of risking setting it up ourselves, we took it to a local professional bike shop that has extensive experience with bike rack installation to ask for their assistance and advice. They kindly set up the rack on the vehicle for us. The process looked to be very easy and painless, but since we did not do this ourselves, we cannot provide review information beyond the above description.

 

Stability of rack on vehicle after installation:

Grade: A+

Once properly installed, The Yakima HalfBack 3 is rock solid in the area of stability on the vehicle. This bike rack isn’t going anywhere. There is not even a hint of movement whatsoever. You can get it to move if you give a concerted physical effort to push or pull it out of place, but the force required is beyond anything that will be felt on the back of your vehicle short of an actual automobile accident.

 

Ease of mounting one or two bicycles to the rack and stability of bicycles on the rack:

Grade: A+

You must first rotate the support arms to the appropriate position and lock them into place. The dials allowing this rotation and locking are a little bit difficult to move, but not problematic.

The ZipStrap system employed by the Yakima Halfback 3 to hold the bikes to the rack is excellent and could not be easier to use. All you must do is place the bike(s) in the appropriate spot(s) on the rack and then push three plastic straps through each side of three holders and then pull them through until everything is very snug. The ZipStraps lock firmly in place and again are as secute as can be. The design is very easy to use and provides a very high level of security for your bicycles.

Additionally, there are anti-sway cradles that easily rotate to provide additional stability. A wheel strap to hold the front tire in place and a safety strap to further secure the bike frames to the rack frame are also included.

 

Ease of mounting three bicycles to the rack:

Grade: B-/C+

The one knock that we have in our use of the Yakima Halfback 3 lies in the difficulty of getting three bikes onto the rack. It is a very tight fit to get three bikes mounted properly and requires several repositioning efforts to find the optimal position for each bike. The repositioning efforts in clumsily handling bicycles in trying to get them properly mounted can see pedals push through wheel spokes or other bicycle parts hitting against each other which can cause paint scratches on the bicycles. We believe that slightly larger space gaps between the three placement spots would be helpful for this problem. But we understand that this is not an issue unique to the Yakima Halfback 3 rack and that minimizing space needed is also of considerable importance. We’re just relaying that we did have a fair bit of difficulty with positioning three bikes on this system. In the end, we were able to figure out good placement positions, but it took a few tries. Once you figure out how best to do this, you should have no problems with future use provided you can remember how you did it the first time.

 

Removing bicycles from the rack:

Grade: A+

To remove the bikes, you simply have to remove the wheel strap, the safety strap and the three ZipStraps. This can be done in seconds.

 

Overall Grade: A/A-

We can confidently recommend this product for your bicycle transport needs.