Four Bikes on the Frontier

At least for now, here's how we're transporting the bicycles on the truck. In the long run a cap or topper will cover the bed and then the rack will have to change, but truck caps are pricey and that purchase will have to wait until next year. In this photo the four single bikes were loaded up for a trip to Anderson Park.

We picked up a couple of longer Yakima crossbars (58") to span the width of the bed. The two outer bike mounts are the ATOC Tandem Toppers (shown here with tails removed) with Yakima lockable skewers. The inner racks include an older Yakima jaw-style rack we're using for Quinn's bike(s), and the Yakima Copperhead that holds the Nickel. When the tandems are on the rack, the tails of the Tandem Topper tracks and the rear wheels of the tandems extend several inches past the tailgate, which is one reason we didn't mount the bikes to the floor of the bed. I'll post a picture of the tandems on the truck if I can remember to take one when they're up there.

The picture below shows how the rack is attached to the bed. I used stainless u-bolts to attach the crossbars to pieces of aluminum angle that are bolted to the Nissan's Utili-Track system. The Utili-Track dimensions match Home Depot's Superstrut, so I used the Superstrut 'spring nuts' to attach the aluminum angle to the Utili-Track. The system worked out well, and can be removed intact if we need to put something tall in the bed. As it is, there's plenty of space under the rack for other gear. In this photo you can see that the Utili-Track runs around the front and sides of the bed near the top; there are also two tracks on the floor of the bed, hidden by slide-in covers.