Active Gear Review is supported by its audience. If you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Bike rack companies are finally starting to catch on to a problem eBike riders have been dealing with for the past few years: most traditional hitch racks simply were not built for the weight of modern eBikes.
A lot of standard bike racks top out around 40 to 50 pounds per bike, which worked fine for analog bikes, but doesn’t leave much room once you start talking about full-size eBikes, fat tire models, or commuter bikes loaded with racks and accessories. As eBikes have exploded in popularity, the demand for racks that can safely haul them has grown right alongside it.
That brings us to Saris. The Wisconsin-based company has been building bike racks and trainers for decades, and we’ve previously tested the Saris MHS Hitch Bike Rack, which left a solid impression with its modular design and overall build quality.
One of their newest racks, the Saris Cycle-On is positioned to help fill that eBike-ready gap. Rated to carry up to 70 pounds per bike, the Cycle-On was designed around the idea that an eBike rack should still be practical to live with day-to-day. Saris describes it as “Designed for eBikes, built for convenience,” with a focus on compact storage, easy loading, and stable transport.
Over the past few weeks, we loaded the Cycle-On with a mix of eBikes and non-eBikes, drove pavement, gravel, and some West Michigan two-tracks, and came away with a pretty clear picture of where the Cycle-On gets things right and where Saris still has room to improve.
Out of the Box and Onto the Hitch: The Rare “No Assembly” That’s Actually True
Most products that claim “no assembly required” are stretching the truth a little. Usually it means no major assembly required, but you’re still opening a bag full of bolts and digging through the garage for tools.
The Cycle-On is not that product. You open the box, you pull the rack out, and you’re done. Zero tools, zero steps, zero wasting time in the garage before you ride. It slides into the hitch, and you’re loading bikes. It sounds minor, but there’s something refreshing about opening the box and being able to use the rack immediately instead of turning a simple ride into a project first.
Saris Cycle-On Build Quality and the Design Details
The first thing you notice when you pull this rack out is the weight-to-size ratio. The Cycle-On weighs 53 lbs., which sounds like a lot until you realize it’s holding up 140 lbs. of bikes in a hitch receiver on the back of your moving vehicle. It’s a surprisingly compact rack for something rated to carry that much weight.
Then you notice the tire trays. They swoop downward, and your first instinct is to wonder if something is wrong with it, the way you might stare at a fighter jet’s swept wings and briefly question the whole concept of flight. But those swept wings aren’t a design flaw; they’re the reason the plane goes fast. The drooping trays on the Cycle-On are the same story. They drop the center of gravity of your bike load closer to the hitch point, which reduces the leverage that causes sway. Once you understand that, you look at the rack completely differently. It’s not a quirk. It’s the whole plan.
One other detail worth mentioning is the hitch compatibility. The Cycle-On works with both 1.25” and 2” hitch receivers thanks to an included hitch adapter sleeve. If you need to run it on a 1.25” hitch, you simply remove the sleeve with an Allen wrench. Personally, I’d almost rather see Saris offer completely separate 1.25” and 2” versions instead of using an adapter system at all, for better stability on the 2″. Although we never noticed any stability issues during testing, but structurally, a rack purpose-built around a dedicated 2” hitch just makes more sense to me for heavy eBike loads. That said, from a business standpoint, I completely understand the decision. One rack that works across both hitch sizes simplifies manufacturing, inventory, and purchasing for everyone involved.
The Three Features That Separate the Saris Cycle-On from the Also-Rans
The Ramp
Loading a heavy ebike onto a hitch rack without a ramp is like trying to put a kayak on a roof rack alone. You can do it, but you will hate the weight of the ebike and probably pull something. The telescoping ramp that comes with the Cycle-On changes everything about this process. You just roll the bike up it and onto the rack.
What impressed me most wasn’t the ramp itself but the way it attaches onto the rack for loading. It clips directly onto the rack, locked in place. It’s not flopping around or sliding out mid-load. On a product built for heavy ebikes, that kind of detail matters, because you’re doing this lift with real weight, and you don’t want the ramp shifting under you at the worst moment.
The Tilt
Tilt-away features exist on plenty of racks, but they range from confidence-inspiring to terrifying depending on how well the thing is engineered. The Cycle-On’s tilt held our ebikes completely secure even when the rack was at nearly 90 degrees. I braced for the bikes to shift when we tilted it back to access the rear hatch, and nothing moved. It just… held. Accessing the back of the SUV with two loaded bikes on the rack is now a non-event, which is exactly what it should be.
The Anti-Wobble System
Here’s where most racks cut corners in a way that drives me crazy. The typical anti-wobble setup is a ball tightener against the side of the hitch receiver. It works okay. The Cycle-On uses a triangular pressure tightener that locks into the corners of the hitch receiver instead of pushing against one flat side. Think of it like the difference between standing on one leg and a three-point stance. The corner contact distributes pressure in a way that creates a noticeably more stable hold. Once you’ve felt it, the ball tightener approach feels like the wrong answer to the right question.
Storage: Where the Cycle-On Really Separates Itself
The garage space problem is real…especially for gear geeks like us (and we know we are not alone in that). A lot of heavy-duty racks solve the ebike hauling problem and create a completely different problem, which is where do you put this thing when you’re not using it. It usually ends up leaning against a garage wall somewhere, awkwardly taking up more space than something you only use once or twice a week probably should.
The Cycle-On folds compact and rolls on integrated wheels. You fold the trays in, tip it back onto its wheels, and roll it into the corner like a large checked suitcase. For a rack that handles 140 lbs. of ebikes, the folded storage footprint is almost comically small. It’s like finally finding a large hitch rack that doesn’t demand a permanent section of your garage when you’re not using it.
This alone makes it a top contender for anyone who doesn’t have a dedicated gear garage. It practically disappears when you’re not using it.
Highways, Gravel, and Two-Tracks: How the Cycle-On Held Up
We ran the Cycle-On through just about everything West Michigan could throw at it. On paved highways, the rack felt completely stable with no excessive movement, noise, or constant reminder in the mirror that you were hauling bikes behind the vehicle. Even on long gravel roads, the rack stayed composed with bikes loaded.
Then came the two-tracks, which I think is the most important part of the test. If a rack is designed for eBikes, it needs to handle the kinds of rough access roads and trailhead routes that some eBike riders use, especially with heavier bikes loaded onto the back.
Here’s the reality with rough two-tracks and heavy eBikes: some side-to-side movement is inevitable, and the Cycle-On was no different. Not wobble, not rattling, not anything that made us question whether the bikes were going to stay on, but a rhythmic side-to-side movement that comes with hauling 160 pounds of bike and rack down an uneven dirt path. Watching it in the rearview is a little like watching a big dog run: a bit loose and floppy, clearly having fun, and you’re not actually worried about it. We kept it slow on the uneven parts and the rack did its job.
We also pushed the weight limits during testing. Some of our heavier eBikes were sitting right at the edge of 90 pounds. To be clear, we do not recommend exceeding Saris’ 70-pound-per-bike weight rating. But if your eBike is close to that limit, removing the battery usually drops 7 to 9 pounds from the bike, which is often enough to bring many eBikes safely within the rack’s rated capacity. Even with that in mind, we still pushed the Cycle-On slightly past its combined 140-pound rating during testing, likely somewhere around the 160-pound mark total, and never experienced any issues with stability or security.
The Fat Tire Problem (and Why Saris Should Fix This)
This is the one spot where the Cycle-On drops the ball, and it’s frustrating precisely because fat tire eBikes are not some niche edge case. They’re everywhere.
The included tire straps are long enough to wrap around a fat tire. That’s not the issue. The issue is that they’re not long enough to accommodate two fat tires and their wider wheelbase simultaneously. You’ll get one secured and then discover that catching the second one with the included straps is a stretch exercise in futility.
The fix is simple: longer ratchet straps. I had a set of Kuat straps in the garage and they worked perfectly. But needing additional straps to properly use a rack marketed as “Designed for eBikes, built for convenience” with one of the most common eBike categories on the market feels like an oversight. If Saris is positioning the Cycle-On as eBike-ready, fat tire eBikes should have been part of that equation from day one.
So if you’re planning to haul fat tire eBikes with this rack, you will need to purchase a set of longer straps before you order. It’s a thirty-second fix once you have them, but you shouldn’t have to know that going in.
The Verdict on the Saris Cycle-On 2-Bike Hitch Rack
The Saris Cycle-On is a well-designed rack. The assembly situation is as clean as it gets. The build quality is strong. The ramp, tilt, and anti-wobble system are all doing what they promised. The storage solution is legitimately impressive for the capacity it offers. And it handled our mixed fleet of eBikes and non-ebikes through some of West Michigan’s roughest roads without anything coming loose or going wrong.
The fat tire strap situation is a gap that Saris should close, and the sway on rough terrain is something to be aware of if you’re planning to go off-road at speed. But neither of those things changes the overall verdict.
If you’re short on storage space and need a rack that can handle eBike weight without requiring its own corner of the garage, the Cycle-On is hard to beat. No hesitation recommending it. For more info or to pick one up for yourself, visit saris.com or amazon.com.
