Bought my 2012 Sport about a month ago. Was coming from a 2005 Element where putting a couple of bikes inside was pretty easy and convenient.

With the FIT when I am riding alone, I usually fold down the back seats and throw my bike in the back. I use a fork lock and a small piece of wood to hold the bike upright. Works great. For multiple bikes and multiple people, I needed another solution. I decided to go with a hitch set-up.

I went to my local Draw-Tite dealer (Raleigh Hitch) and a had a Class-1, 1-1/4" hitch installed. The Draw-Tite part number: 24826. Paid $240 out the door. Probably $75 more than I should have paid but they did it fast and the install is clean and professional. Took 30 minutes.

For a hitch mount bike rack there were a lot of options. As I installed a 1-1/4" hitch, it seemed like a 3-bike carrier was as big as I was going to get. I looked at all the big name rack manufacturers like, Saris THULE and Yakima. All of them were very nice and well made but 'hella' expensive. Expect to pay north of $250 for a decent rack.

I did a little hunting around and found the Allen Deluxe-3 on Amazon for $70 with FREE shipping. Seemed way too good to be true and the reviews were all excellent. Looked at Walmart and saw similar stellar reviews and prices. My gut was that these people were not avid cyclist, never saw a THULE or YAKIMA and had no point of reference. I mean come-on.....what do WalMart shoppers know about bike racks, right?

I started doing the math and thought for 1/3 the $ of a YAKIMA or THULE, why not buy and if it sucks and lasts half as long as the big name brands and I buy another one in two years...I'm still ahead.

Well I bought the Deluxe-3 and have been using it for a month now. Totally exceeded my expectations. Sure it lacks the nice levers and buttons of a YAKIMA and THULE but it does everything else just as well. It is built well, good paint work, decent strap system and comes with a anti-wiggle bolt for a 2" or 1-1/4 setup as well as a 2" adapter.

Save your money and go this route...unless ya have to be seen with a $300 rack. In summary...highly recommended.

 

nice sticker on the down tube of the frame :P

 

Thanks. Big fan of the OFS.

 

Great job on the review! Thanks for sharing!

 

I use a North Shore rack. All of my bikes (5 with my gf) total to about $20K of bikes :-) and none have a nice flat top tube (except my cross-bike) like yours so that type of rack is useless to me (using the bars that "make" a flat top tube cause the bike to hang too low (long suspension forks). Other ways of holding them on that type of rack are a pain and often result in hurting the bikes (my carbon bikes esp. don't like that). I also have a roof rack with yakima cobra type bike carriers so I can carry 4 bikes at once.

But glad you found a solution that was cheap that works for you.