Hollywood Racks, Trail Rider, Hitch Mount Rack, 1-1/4'' and 2'', Bikes: 2

I installed the Hollywood Trail Rider Hitch Rack and my first impression was of the racks insertion into my 2" receiver. It has a unique block that bolts to the rack. Once inserted into the receiver there is a bolt that replaces the traditional hitch pin. The bolt is threaded through and a cotter pin inserted for safety. This connection results in less sway when driving. The threads in my unit were very corroded. I tried to remove the rust and greased the bolt. This is enough to lower my rating one star. The cradles for the bike wheels slip onto the rack arms with a bit of elbow grease. They are secured with threaded screws that have large knobs. The orientation for the cradles was easy to determine by the diagram and the well written instructions. The thickly padded hook shaped hold downs slide on by squeezing the locking clips. The rack arms pivot upwards to make it easy to store and makes it much easier to handle the rack when installing or removing. By the way these rack arms are secured into their positions with pins inserted in both the upright and lowered positions. When folded the rack is very compact. It's heavy but about the size of a suitcase. When positioning one bicycle on the rack, the instructions suggest the inside position be used, you place the bike wheels into the cradles and slide the hold down onto the top tube. I don’t do thisunless I have to. The pedal can easily rotate and scratch my car bumper or trunk lid. Instructions also suggest the hook be positioned as close to the seat tube as possible. If one is transporting a fat bike, Hollywood sells a set of cradles that are in excess of four inches wide. They are presently $55.65 on Amazon. After a year of use the ratcheting mechanism on the hold down hook failed. I contacted the company and was provided with a new hook. Kudos for a company that stands behind it's products. I added a full star to the review for this reason. This rack is a terrific buy and is a very sturdy, effective and secure method for carrying most every standard bike. A short note. The Hollywood Trail Rider Rack is heavy. When handling and assembling it is quite clumsy. Be careful not to ding your car or pinch your fingers. Minor issue. Rust is showing up at a couple of locations on the rack. Easily remedied by applying rust converter. Update 8-12-20: I sold this rack and purchased the new model mostly so I could tilt away the rack to load the “inside” bike and to be able to fold the rack up next to the vehicle when not in use. Neither of these functions were available on this old rack. I’m sticking with Hollywood for now.

Works well for the most part! However, they should've included wheel-holders that are 5' wide to accommodate most fat-wheeled bikes, or have an option to choose the size of the holders at the purchase stage, which is what I originally bought this for. I didn't like having to buy extra holders.

I bought the new Thule ($$$) for the wife’s car, and settled on this for my (older) car. It’s not as easily to attach or remove and store, like the Thule, you can’t get into the hatch with the bikes on it on it, etc. BUT it’s just as easy to load a bike on it, and the bike stays put. Have driven a few hundred miles already, over roads of varying smoothness; zero issues with this. Putting it together was a little more involved than with the Thune, but still not difficult. For a mid-low priced rack, this is a good deal. Highly recommend.

For the money, it’s a solid rack. I feel it is pretty well made and gets the job done. It’s not the most convenient or the best user experience, and if you want that, you’ll pay for it. This on the other hand is “just good enough” and if you aren’t planning on leaving it semi-permanently attached to your vehicle and out in the weather all the time, this will do fine for like, a third of the cost of those other racks. This Hollywood Racks 2 Bike Trailrider model rack was received quickly. It came with a locking bolt to attach the rack to the hitch securely, and it also features locks to fix the clamps down locked when a bike is mounted. It’s not theft-proof by any means but it should deter most save for the more determined thieves. If you don’t plan on leaving the bikes unattended, this will be adequate enough. Puts together pretty quickly in around 15-20 minutes and also has a nice Aluminum hitch insert for normal 2” Class III hitches that will lock the rack in to eliminate play at the hitch. In combination w/ the threaded locking pin, it does a decent job there. The rack works pretty well in action. I took my wife’s Klunker to the shop today and it was fine on speed bumps, highway speeds and occasionally bumpy service road streets. I’m confident it can handle both our bikes without any issue. Since I remove it and stow in the garage when I’m not using it, it shouldn’t get rust but since it’s steel and steel rusts if exposed to moisture, other buyers’ mileage may vary. This rack is a little far off the back to keep on truck when I don’t intend to use it in the immediate future so I just take it off to preserve the unit’s finish. It’s easy enough with a 3/4 wrench or socket, and I can lift it out of the hitch one-armed so it’s not terribly heavy (that said I’m a large male). The sled straps for the tires could be just a smidge longer but they still fasten on my 29er and my wife’s 27.5 (both with wider tires) . When a bike isn’t mounted, the unit will rattle/bob just slightly on bumpier routes. I never felt it would come loose or the brackets would unfold. It wasn’t noisy. Just not as refined as something that costs 3-4x as much. With a bike in place, it seemed to lock in everything a bit more solidly. I also am not thrilled that you have to fold the main vertical mast down back vs to the side. I can see how it would make using this in parallel park situations a bit more challenging, but most lots around here are normal lots where parallel parking isn’t recommended or needed. I paid close to 2 Benjamins for this rack and for the money I think it’s a good rack. There are a few minor complaints stemming to user experience but I just wasn’t quite ready to throw down $600 on a bike rack at this time. I plan on using it to go explore other nearby trails and visit other towns, but I live on a trail system so I don’t rely on using a rack all the time and ai live in a relatively dry hot place so I can lean on this a little more than maybe others can. That pocketed $400 can be put towards an eventual fork upgrade or other needed gear. I’ll see how many seasons I get out of this and maybe I might eventually get a OneUp, Kuat, Yakima or Thule, but for now this will work pretty well and especially since my 29er is an XL and many racks won’t accommodate the wheelbase. This one is pretty versatile for those longer wheelbases (think Hardcore HTs, Enduro sleds, etc. with more spaced out, longer wheelbases.)

In the 90s I had a Hollywood Rack bike rack that straddled the tire on my 1993 Jeep Wrangler and I loved it. It was solid and lasted longer than the Jeep. Fast forward to now I was looking for a hitch mounted rack for my Tiguan and was pretty much stuck with the prospect of paying over $500 for a Thule or Yakima (you people that buy $130 racks amaze me that would use such cheap products). But I found a Hollywood rack. Honestly, the quality is better than I hope, it is solid, the welds are amazing and the assembly was a breeze. Just like I remember my 1990 something Hollywood rack. There is only one thing I am not crazy about, the trailer hitch pin threads into the mount as it goes through the hitch. It's not terrible. It just means I have to carry an extra tool in the car and I can't use my Rhino Rack locking pin. Other than that, it's perfect!