For my summer travels this year I flew to Vancouver and rented a truck for 4 months. One of the downsides of flying over making the dreaded cross country drive is that you don’t get to bring much mountain biking stuff when you get there. Tools, a pump chainlube…
and a bike rack or tailgate pad.
So when I arrived I snagged up a Raceface T2 Halfstack Tailgate Pad which was the #1 rated Tailgate pad by Outdoor Gear Lab. The Halfstack is simply the small, 2 bike version of the full width pad. It wasn’t my preferred pad, because there is no padding in the area where the downtube touches the frame.
This is one of the reasons I like my Yakima Gate keeper — there is soft padding over the rigid edge of the tailgate. I’ve driven cross country (literally) with no indication of wear on the downtube.
Anyhow over a month of use with the t2 by raceface, the contact point on the downtube has rubbed through my ride wrap on the frame.
I’m not thrilled about it. Actually I am very unhappy.
I guess the moral of the story is, use some type of shuttle guard if you’re not using the Gatekeeper. Even Ridewrap makes a ‘Shuttle Armour’ in addition to their wrap kits.
I’ll probably go minimalist thought and just wrap a tube around my frame for the next few months I’ll be using it.
If I had a do over… I’d go with a different tailgate pad.