Kuat Sherpa 2.0 Review

In the Kuat family tree, the Sherpa is a simple, clean-looking, low-priced rack that excels in hauling non-electric bikes. Compared to racks from other brands, the Sherpa isn't low-priced, but it feels like a higher-quality product than many on the market. The Sherpa is lightweight and easy to mount, store, and use, but it lacks the versatility to carry heavier e-bikes. If you don't plan to carry bikes weighing more than 40 pounds and you value a well-designed product, the Sherpa is a fantastic choice.

Ease of Everyday Use

The Sherpa makes other racks look unnecessarily complicated. The single mast from the hitch plate supports two trays that fold flat for easy storage against your vehicle, while still retaining enough contour to hold your bike securely. At just over 32 pounds, this rack is easy to mount and remove, and its compact size makes storage easier than most.

With the rack mounted to your vehicle, you have multiple deployment options. From the upright position, pull the pivot lever to unlock the rack and unfold it flat. If your hands are full, you can simply press the opposite side of the same lever with your foot to prepare the rack for loading. Before loading a bike, raise the wheel hold arm, unlatch the rear wheel strap, and open the mini tray for the front wheel. Lift your bike onto the rack, secure the wheel hold arm, strap the rear wheel with the ratchet strap, and you're ready to go.

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Locking your bike to the rack is also quite simple with the lasso-style cable. Simply wrap the cable back on itself, and it locks into the rack with the same key used for the locking hitch pin. The key is not required for locking, so the process feels smooth and efficient.

The rack has a maximum weight limit of 40 pounds per bike and a relatively short maximum wheelbase of 47". There is an adapter available from Kuat that extends the tray by 3", allowing you to accommodate bikes with wheelbases up to 50". Riders of new trail bikes should check their dimensions before buying this rack, as modern geometry has pushed wheelbases longer than this. My size large Santa Cruz Hightower has a wheelbase of 49.8" and weighs 36 pounds without tools loaded into the frame or a water bottle.

We found the rack a joy to use; it feels high quality and has a simple, modern aesthetic that doesn't clutter your vehicle's appearance. The powder-coated finish is also durable and easy to clean, so the rack stays nice-looking, even when sitting out in high UV environments.

Ease of Removal and Storage

At a feathery 32 pounds, the Sherpa is among the easiest racks we've tested to remove and store. You'll have no trouble carrying the rack with one hand, and the flat hitch mast means it sits upright on the floor without tipping over. This is an underrated element of rack design, trust us. With as many as 8 hitch racks in our warehouse and garages at any given time, racks that fall over effectively take up twice as much space, or need to be propped against something stable.

Versatility

Versatility refers to how well this rack can accommodate different types of bikes, and in reality, not very well. The Sherpa has a maximum weight limit of 40 pounds per tray, which keeps it from carrying almost all e-bikes and many mountain bikes. As discussed above, the 47" maximum wheelbase is a limiting factor, but $30 on the Kuat website buys you some wiggle room. The wheel trays can hold tires up to 3", and that's pretty reasonable since we've mostly ruled out carrying e-bikes.

One thing we really liked about the Sherpa is that it's small enough to fit in the trunk of several vehicles, so if you're not using it (but want to keep it handy), you can stash it inside your vehicle.

You'll find 14.5" of space between bikes, which is sufficient for most uses. You can't adjust bikes laterally like you can on a dual-tire hold rack, such as a 1Up or Kuat Piston. We noticed that flat-bar mountain bikes mounted on the inside tray interfered with most of our taller test vehicles. On our vans, a 760mm handlebar would touch the rear window; on a Subaru Forester, the handlebars would clear the roof, but on our SUVs, the end of the bars would bang against the roof on bumpy roads. If you're using narrower handlebars or drop bars, you shouldn't encounter interference.

Ease of Assembly

The Sherpa is a simple rack, and its assembly is no exception. There are very few parts in the box, and even if you didn't pore over the directions as we did, you'd probably figure it all out just fine. Like most hitch racks, it's much easier to assemble them if you start by putting the hitch assembly into your vehicle's receiver. Once the main mast is secure, bolt on the trays and mount the tilt lever. The trays mount with almost comically long bolts that extend from the front of the rack to the outside of the last tray. From cutting the tape on the box to being road-ready, our Sherpa took 12 minutes to assemble and required no tools not included in the box.

Security

How well does the Sherpa protect your bike, and how safe is this fancy rack left on the back of your vehicle? To answer the latter first, the Sherpa uses a locking hitch pin that secures the rack to your hitch. This keeps the rack locked to your vehicle and offers some protection against thieves who might try to steal the rack with bikes loaded on it.

To secure your bikes to the rack, the Sherpa uses a noose- or lasso-style cable with a single loop at the end. This lets you loop it around the rack or hitch and use the 70 inches of cable to secure the most valuable parts of your bikes. The ratchet arms and wheel straps do not lock. Overall, the rack provides adequate theft protection, but we probably wouldn't leave our fancy bikes out of sight for very long without a secondary lock of some kind.

Durability

The Sherpa has an all-aluminum frame that is powder-coated in one of three colors. Few bike racks offer color choices, and if you're shopping for aesthetics, the Sherpa can look quite elegant on some vehicles, especially when color-matched. The gloss finish on our test rack was very durable and held up well to our use and abuse. One thing that stands out about the finish is how well it cleans up. Many of the anodized or rough-coated racks seem to hold on to dirt and road grime, but the Sherpa looks brand new after a car wash.

We're critical of using plastic on racks; it doesn't hold up well to UV and tends to get brittle after too many freeze/thaw cycles. While most of the Sherpa is aluminum, it does employ some plastic in critical areas. The wheel straps, tops of the ratchet arm, and folding wheel trays are all made of plastic and would likely be your first failure points. That said, we've had a Sherpa for 7 years, and despite normal wear and tear, all the plastic seems to be holding up just fine.

The ratchet arms use anodized aluminum; note that these arms should not be lubricated, as the compounds in lube can eat away at the anodized coating. Overall, we're quite pleased with the build quality and durability of this rack; it should provide many years of reliable use if kept clean and not overloaded.

Value

At the time of this writing, the Sherpa sells for $759, which seems high for a rack with limited versatility. At the same time, the rack is elegant, durable, and incredibly easy to use and store. If you don't need to carry e-bikes and you value quality-built products, the Sherpa is an impressive option.

Should I buy the Kuat Sherpa 2.0

The Sherpa isn't exactly in a league of its own, but it offers a beautifully simple take on what can often feel like an erector set on the back of your car. This rack will likely last well into the next decade, and at least for me, that's about 10-20 bikes from now. If your needs aren't going to grow into needing to carry three bikes, or hauling an e-bike, this rack is a solid contender.