etrailer | RockyMounts AfterParty Swing Away 2 Bike Rack Review

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Hi everyone, Aiden here at the etrailer. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at the RockyMounts AfterParty SwingAway bike rack. If you're familiar with the RockyMounts GuideRail, this is going to be very similar in the way that it holds the bike by our tires and everything else is pretty much a carbon copy of the GuideRail except that this has the SwingAway base. It's gonna be really nice for Vans, trucks with tailgates, any sort of situation where you might want to swing the rack away rather than just being able to tilt it down. Let's check it out. Much like the GuideRail though, this does still have the tilting feature.
That's a pretty big advantage for most platform style bike racks especially the higher end ones, where you've got a handle at the end that we can pull to tilt the whole rack down with bikes loaded. Now, it does have a pretty aggressive tilt, so do watch out for it if you've got this thing fully loaded. But you can see on our truck today where that issue comes into play with the tilting, is that we don't get full clearance with our tailgate to open it up, it would make contact and that's pretty true for a lot of different trucks or Sprinter vans, any sort of situation like that, that's where the SwingAway comes into play. So if you've got a vehicle where the tilting works and you just need quick access, it's great to know that you have it. But if we go further underneath the bike rack, there's going to be a blue handle here that we can start to loosen up to unlock the tilting.
And once that's fully released, there's a pin off to the right that we can pull to release the arm. Now as I fold this out, I can stand up, readjust myself. And I like to get on the other side of the rack, because this will actually swing away a full 180 degrees. This pin at the end will lock in to secure the bike rack on this part and in the middle, the pin will lock in to secure the arm. This gives us full room to open up our tailgate without any sort of clearance issues.
So if we need a place to sit down and change our shoes before or after our ride or just have a place to sit maybe have a meal if we're going offroading, or going out for a long camping trip. Now the one thing with any sort of SwingAway bike rack is going to be all of that weight so far out from your hitch. You can see that the arm is sagging quite a bit right now, and that's gonna be pretty true for really any sort of swing wave bike rack. It's just because of how far that weight is out. So for me, I probably wouldn't leave it out like this all the time.
If you're maybe folding it out to have a meal or just change your shoes before or after your ride, something like that, I think it's gonna be just fine. It gives you that access when you need it, but I wouldn't leave it out extended like this for dates at a time with bikes loaded. And whenever we need to fold it back in, just pull these pins to release it. I like to do the middle one first, just to get the arm started. And as we fold it it in, we can pull the outer pin to release the bike racks there. Now, I like to walk around just to get myself into a better position now. So as I push it back in, I'm not getting stuck between the bike rack arms. (bike rack clicking) Push it until you're here click, that's gonna be the pin locking back into place, and then resecure it with that hand knob underneath. So as we're tightening this down, it's going to reach a point when it's fully tightened and that handle's gonna be in a certain position, whether it's straight down like this and we maybe don't want it there to help with our ground clearance. Just pull it out and flip it around and it'll free spin and lock back into place. Now if you have it straight up like this, it will interfere with the tilting mechanism. So if you plan on using that tilting that we showed you in the very beginning, make sure it's just off somewhere to the side like this where it'll be out of the way of the tilting and not interfering with your ground clearance. As for the bike rack, it's gonna work with a really wide range of bikes. It's gonna hold them by the tires using this dual wheel mount design, which for me is one of my favorites. It's really easy to load and unload because of that, those arms open up really wide to just give you a clear path to load up your bikes and it's not gonna make any sort of frame contact. So for alternative frame bikes and carbon frame bikes, they're gonna be just fine on this rack. And wit

[@stephenh8169]

What’s an option that’s better for bikes with fenders?

[@etrailer]

We'd recommend something like the Saris Freedom # SA4412B used with the Saris # SAR36VR swing adapter. The rack holds the bikes by the frame using clamps that have tons of adjustability, so it'll work with all kinds of different bike frames (except for bikes with carbon fiber frames).
www.etrailer.com/Hitch-Bike-Racks/Saris/SA4412B.html
www.etrailer.com/Hitch-Adapters/Saris/SAR36VR.html