Saris Glide EX Bike Hitch Bike Rack
Original price was: $539.99.$359.99Current price is: $359.99.
Price: $539.99 - $359.99
(as of Oct 02, 2025 18:41:44 UTC – Details)
One-Step Hatch Access: Effortlessly access the rear of your vehicle with a simple one-step trigger release, whether the rack is loaded with bikes or not. This innovative design ensures you can quickly and easily reach your cargo without unloading your bikes.
Innovative Design: The four-bar linkage system precisely controls the center of mass, providing a smooth, glide-action away from the vehicle. This advanced engineering allows for a seamless and effortless operation, ensuring your bikes remain stable and secure during transit.
Integrated Security: Complete peace of mind with built-in locks that secure both the rack to your car and the bikes to the rack. This comprehensive security system ensures that your bikes are protected from theft, allowing you to travel worry-free.
Easy Loading: Low profile bike cradles with best-in-class ratchet straps and an anti-sway design make loading and securing your bikes a breeze. Generous spacing between bikes prevents damage and allows for quick and easy adjustments to fit a wide range of bike sizes and styles.
Made in the USA: Proudly manufactured in Madison, WI, the Saris Glide EX combines high-quality construction with sleek aesthetics. This bike rack is designed to withstand the elements and provide years of reliable use.
Customers say
Customers praise the bike rack’s build quality and find it straightforward to install, with one mentioning it comes pre-assembled. The ease of movement receives mixed feedback – while some bikes move well, others don’t move at all. The stability is also mixed, with customers describing it as solid but one reporting it broke after a month of use. While some customers consider it worth the price, others find it expensive.
4 reviews for Saris Glide EX Bike Hitch Bike Rack
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Original price was: $539.99.$359.99Current price is: $359.99.
Artemaria –
Preciously Expensive, But Worth Every Penny
Sometimes a company takes a look at the market, figures out what is missing, and builds a really nice product to address those needs. That is what Saris did here. By the way, this is our first Saris product, and it is interesting because they have some nice little literature about this American company that builds this particular product in the USA, and offers a lifetime warranty on it. While this was nice to see from the box, nothing really matters if the product is not good. I became aware of this through a Wirecutter article that recommended another rack, and as Wirecutter sometimes does, it kind of ignored this rack for whatever reason – but this rack had a feature that their chosen rack did not, which is that it moves out of the way so that you can open your trunk, which is, if you have a family, really really essential.So this is the only product that we found that addresses the issue of people who buy a small SUV (think Honda CR-V, Toyota Rav4 or Mazda CX-5, etc.) but don’t want to do the modifications necessary to put in a 2″ hitch to get one of those swing away bike racks and instead put on a 1 1/4 inch hitch. This product is relatively straightforward to install, as it just involves you putting the screw in pin (provided with lube!) through the 1 1/4 inch hitch and then locking it in place so no one will steal your nice bike rack.We used to have a simpler bike rack that they sold at Walmart (it was $150 for a 4 bike rack) and while I’m sure that that company makes some nice products, I really did not like that rack. Inevitably, someone would forget something in the back and we would have to try to open the trunk of our SUV and it was a disaster needing at least two people to lift up the bikes and hoping that the hitch would not snap off the car completely because the weight was so poorly distributed. At times, I left the rack on the car unprotected, hoping someone would take it. No one did. Ultimately, the straps broke off and we got rid of it.But enough about how upset we were with the old bike rack, enter the new. With the Saris, the straps are rubber, not cloth, they click in nicely, and tightly and there’s enough spacing for 4 adult bikes with ease. In the past, I literally had to hang bicycles upside down to get them to fit on the old rack. Not with this. If you read the instructions, it is pretty easy to just pop them on, tighten all the straps and you are off to cycle.The big thing for me was the handle that you use to swing the bikes out of the way. I gave the handle a good squeeze thinking the bikes would just drop, like they did with the old bicycle rack (which was alot harder to use). Instead, I squeezed the handle and nothing happened. Nothing. The bikes did not move. That is, the bikes did not move until I gently pushed them and then they easily moved out of the way. We opened the trunk on our small SUV with ease. Until I got used to it, it felt a little weird, and I thought that the handle was sticking when it was not, but the rack works and works well. The best thing about it is that it fits in our 1 1/4 hitch without modification and it is really solid in there (there’s also a really nice 2 inch adapter for those with larger hitches). This rack did not bounce around like other racks did. It was really nice.I did read the negative reviews, but quite frankly, I don’t understand them. While there may be a quality control issue, we did not have any such problems. Our unit worked well, looked new and apparently comes with a really good warranty (lifetime). Further, we did not find another product on the market that will natively fit into a 1 1/4 inch hitch that will let you move it out of the way with the bikes fully loaded. To us, while this is dearly expensive, because of the build quality, solidity of ride even when fully loaded, and not being able to find anything else like this, makes it worth every penny.Hope this helps and good luck with your shopping.
Michael –
Accessories May be Required
Our current Thule rack (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017SV7P7O) only holds two bikes , so I was excited to have the opportunity to test this rack for an upcoming bike trip with the grandkids that necessitates carrying 4 bikes. Unfortunately, the Saris Glide 4 Bike Rack has too many limitations to live with long term.In order to use this rack with a womanâs bike, a kidâs bike, or a mountain bike youâre most likely going to need to purchase some accessories. Any frame geometry with anything other than a straight top tube will need a Saris Bike Beam Trunk and Hitch Rack Crossbar Adapter for an additional $39.99 each. Youâre also going to need to purchase two pair of Saris Wheel Stabililzer Straps (2 Pack) for $9.99 to keep the front wheels from banging around while driving. I just used a velcro strap that I had laying around. Itâs much less expensive and just as effective as the Saris strap. In my view, these straps should be provided at this price point.The installation of the rack is cumbersome and requires a 3/4 inch socket wrench to tighten down the hitch pin. Even after cinching down the pin as tight as it will go there is still some up and down play in the rack. Because the rack is so cumbersome to install and remove, youâll want to leave it on the vehicle as much as possible. Luckily, the rack can be easily tilted out of the way so you can still raise the tailgate of an SUV or as you can see in my photo – lower the tailgate of a truck. If youâre traveling and think you may want to remove the rack when you arrive at your destination, be sure to pack your 3/4 inch socket wrench because you canât get it off the vehicle without a wrench.Because of the limitations and shortcomings of this rack I donât feel I can recommend it unless your transporting 4 standard size mens bicycles. If youâre carrying a mountain bike, a womans bike, or a kids bike the best option is a platform style rack similar to the Thule ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017SV7P7O ) Itâs a much better solution all around and doesnât require tools to install or remove.
SuzyQ. –
Bad Quality.
I was very disappointed in the quality of this product. The item arrived defective, the arm of the bike rack could not be raised because the pull trigger was stuck. There was scratches all over the plastic covering the bike rack. I ended up returning item back to Amazon and buying a Kuat bike rack instead.
Publius –
High quality, exercise in patience
I have found the bike rack to be of high quality and all pivoting parts work well.Will fit both 2″ and 1 1/4″ hitches. Nice touch is an included hitch lock which prevents anyone from stealing your rack. This would be hard to do regardless… because the rack is attached to the hitch with a serious bolt. Someone would have to carry around a ratchet to steal your rack.Another nice touch is the built in bike lock. It is essentially a telescoping cable which can be threaded through the bike frames and locks into the bike rack. There is one key which works for both the hitch lock and the bike cable lock.The feature which allows you to pivot the rack away from the car so that you can access the trunk works very well.The rack is very sturdy and once bolted to your hitch it doesn’t move at all.THe only downside is that it is very hard to actually get four bikes on this rack. This is a criticism of all bike racks of this form factor (with the telescoping arms). The bike handle bars, seats, and petals all combine to make it very difficult to actually get the bikes close to each other.One more thing: many of the bikes today have sloped top bars… that design does not work well with this type of rack. Thankfully, Saris makes a product call the the “Bike Beam”. It is a very sturdy telescoping bar which you connect between the handlebar stem and the seat post. This gives you a true horizontal bar which you can use to mount the bike to the rack. I recommend this product very highly.