Yakima markets the Highspeed as a premium fork-mount bike carrier, and the first thing that hits you (after the sticker shock of $219) is the weight of each of the mounts – they are really heavy for a fork-mount bike carrier – probably 3x heavier than the old Yakima Steelhead. The look of the rack can be best described as chiseled and plasticky, so it may not look good on most cars (if that is one of the criteria for buying this thing) and as with most plastics exposed to UV rays/Sun – it will likely lose its color after long-term exposure to sun (think of Volvo XC cladding). Installation of the rack on the roof is pretty easy, there are 3 rubber covered steel straps (2 on the front 1 in the back) that go around the factory or Yakima crossbars (both aero and round). The front of the rack is wide – about 9 inches wide – so when carrying multiple accessories on the roof – such as 4 bikes, boxes, baskets and such, the space on the roof may run out quick – especially when using factory cross-bars or even narrower (48 inch)Yakima round bars. That's both - between the towers and outside the towers. Ok – the width can be a problem when carrying multiple items on a narrow cross bar, but let’s move on to security. There are 3 lock cores required per one Highspeed rack to secure the bike and the rack itself when you get the rack, but that’s not all. The Bike carrier is secured with a lock to the base rack only on the single rear steel strap mounting point, the front mounting points are not lockable (which to me is counter intuitive, and a security compromise). Then there is the bike locking mechanism – a large knob on the top of the rack grips an aluminum pipe (or a bike through axle if you have a through axle) with a 9mm quick-release skewer (non-lockable) inserted in the pipe. Once the knob is tightened it can be locked with a key – so the bike with a through-axle is locked and secured, but if you’re using 9mm skewer – you’re out of luck – the fork will not be secured to the bike rack with a lock. There is another option though to secure the bike. There is a built in cable lock extending from the rear of the bike tray which allows for the cable to be threaded through the frame and the rear wheel as well as the rack itself – but with bolt cutters – this is not much of a protection – rather a deterrence. Ok so how do you secure your non-through axle bike to the rack? Well with this premium rack, you need to buy separately a universal Yakima lockable skewer to make sure the bike is secure. To me – that’s very lame – at $219 the Highspeed should have come with that skewer out of the box. And another thing… to fully secure the bike and the rack – you need 4 lock cores! If you have 2 bikes and a Yakima base roofrack – that is 12 lock cores (8 for the bike carriers and 4 for the base rack)! In the past I used to think I was going overboard when I used 8 cores to secure the 2 bikes mounted in 2 Steelheads on a Yakima base roofrack. Ok so why the heck did I buy it? Well – so if you’re mounting it on a car with a hatch, that also has a spoiler, the Highspeed is your friend, if in the past you've put the bike on your roof only to discover that the rear hatch hits the rear tire of the bike. This Highspeed bike carrier moves the bike fork mount ahead of the front crossbar – so it moves the whole bike forward on the roof, preventing the rear of the rack, or the bike tire from touching the spoiler, when you open the hatch. For some, that feature alone may be worth getting that rack. For me, the selling point was the ability to accept most if not all front axle types and the ability to mount on round and factory aero cross bars. The wide head of the Highspeed makes for a very stable mounting point, which helps with spreading the load on those thin aero factory crossbars, so there is that plus as well. Overall, I wished that securing the bike and the rack was achieved with 2 cores instead of 4 per bike. Once on the roof you don’t care so much about the weight of the rack itself, but the design of the rack is far from sleek – you could call it rugged and more suitable on an SUV than a sports car. Another wish is that the rack could be mounted closer to the edge of the rack for easier access, while the extra width provides stability, it makes it harder to install the rack outside of the towers – for easier access or to mount it with another accessory - like a box. Whether this rack is for you depends entirely what your preferences are, and how much money you want to spend on a rack. I've put it on a 2015 Outback which comes with an ugly base roofrack from the factory, so the Highspeed actually looks pretty good on it.
