Dakine Pickup Tailgate Pad Review

The simplest and quickest way of transporting or shuttling your bike with your pickup truck is the tailgate pad. Just throwing your bike in the back of the truck and the front wheel over the tailgate keeps your bike from getting scratched up and secure in your truck bed.

Dakine Pickup Tailgate Pad

For 2013 Dakine revamped the tailgate pad by adding 5 individual straps on the small pad and 7 on the fullsize for securing your downtube. They also added some more colourful options as well as a forest camo version. The new straps will help prevent someone’s pedal from scratching up your new bike’s paint job.

I’ve been using the 2012 model for a year now and it has shown a few signs of wear from the bikes and sprockets when loading and some slight discoloration from the sun and road grime but overall the pad is still in great shape. Additionally, it protects my tailgate paint and has shown no signs of damaging my truck. It attaches around the tailgate with 3 straps in 1 minute. The pads can be purchased for $114 from Dakine or found for as cheap as $50 on craigslist. Other brands like Thule are releasing their own versions, but seriously, if you do any significant shuttling these pads are worth the money and make life much easier.

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AdrianLong