As the technology and designs moves forward, the vertical bike racks are becoming more popular. Having four bikes placed horizontally behind a small to medium SUV is problematic and creates major leverage issues. The leverage, and physics tells us, that the approach is doomed to fail. Not to talk about how hard it is to load four bikes on a horizontal rack. I use to fight that all the time, and then forget the order it and do it again. Sometimes it took close to 30 minutes to load four bikes, due handle bar and pedal clearance issues.
Now comes the slew of companies building vertical bike racks. Guess what, not all vertical racks are created equal. Its still problematic that we are being asked to hang a 3,000 to 10,000 dollar bike from their handle bars, shock mounts, or any other part of the body that is susceptible to abrasion and stress.
You may save a little money purchasing rack that utilizes hooks, but there is a reason they are selling for lower cost. Also consider the height of the racks and the offset distance from the vehicle the rack provides. These are very hard problems to solve, and most companies will not provide very good solution for these every day challenges. Most companies, will assume you will compromise and use their products.
Consider the prolong dynamic forces that are being applied to the bikes in those positions. Consider that these bike racks all put major stress and abrasive forces on either the bike components, or on carbon frames. If you are reselling your bikes and want to get maximum value back, then consider our rack.
Supporting small business is a great thing to do, That is the blood line of America. At the same time, you need to make sure you are protected. Liability insurance is an expensive expense for most business. However, it is not required for rack companies to have a liability insurance to cover worst case scenarios. Imagine, due to lack modeling and simulation, a stress fracture is created in the rack and you lose couple of bikes driving down the highway at high speed. If the rack company has no liability insurance and if it is proven that the failure was due to manufacturing and design issues. You will be the party responsible for whatever damage, personal and property. And yes, we have industry standard liability insurance coverage, we model stress, and worst case scenarios as best we can. We also use Engineering upfront, Design, model, test.
We believe that we have the best bike racks in the market, we make no contact with the frame, we have highly engineered our products to last a life time and back it up with a life time warranty. N other rack provides the versatility of ALTA. No other rack will provide a system that works seamlessly. These features and capabilities took years to develop and we are proud of them.
Thank you for reading this.
Ali
