HighSpeed (2017-2023)

Very securely holds bikes, but there are a couple of downsides.

As others here have mentioned, the bottom of the fork mount part of the rack rusts out and will eventually stain the top of your car.

If you are using the adapters for QR wheels, you definitely need to keep those greased as they are made of low-quality steel and will rust and corrode, making them hard to use.

Finally, the QR adapters are a bit of a security flaw because you can lock the QR adapter to the rack, but a thief can still flip open the QR and take your bike unless you use the cable lock.

Works well but rusts out and the rust stains the car. Had no idea it was rusting so badly.

I had the Highspeed for a couple of years and loved it. Simple and easy to use. Then the locking mechanism went. It was rusted out from year round use. I live in Manitoba where we have a fair bit of snow. I used the rack for my fat bike thinking it was for year round use. I was mistaken.

I got this rack because I frequently drive an extremely windy stretch of highway on weekend trips, and after watching videos of various racks, this one was by far the most stable. It's been excellent at carrying my 29" wheel X-country MTB on long highway trips and in windy conditions. The rack is also super lightweight and has an ingenious and easy removal method (I'm talking 30 seconds to install or remove), and is super easy to load and unload the bike due to the good design on the skewer grabber and torque knob. The downside is that the rack is already expensive, but if you want to actually lock your bike in the rack, you need (1) a locking skewer, and (2) no less than 4 lock cores (1 to lock rack to roof; 1 to lock the skewer closed; 1 to lock the torque knob; and 1 for the "Whiptail" cable, which I rarely use), so there's a significant chunk of extra change required.
Overall I am still very happy with the rack and would buy a second one (and all the accessories!).

Very well designed loading system makes bikes sure easy and secure to mount. Also the Highspeed is extremely easy to mount to roof cross bars. Extremely impressive in these two aspects. There are two LARGE problems though:
1. Brake calipers for 180mm and 200mm rotors contact the base platform so the fork and axle won't sit square to the Highspeed unit.
2. Like all Yakima racks the overall length is too short for MTBs. It should be at least 150mm longer to PROPERLY fit a mountain bike.

Great for road bikes. Not quite so good for MTB. My Norco Sight XL mounts to the rack, but it doesn't fit properly, which makes me nervous.

Please Yakima- update your racks to make them long enough for mountain bikes! MTBs are not getting shorter any time soon...Also, get that 3D model updated with a 220mm brake rotor and caliper so the next gen of MTBs will fit your racks. These racks should fit bikes with wheelbases of up to 1400mm and accommodate 220mm rotors with four piston calipers.

For my needs, this is the best rack I've ever owned. All those skinned knuckles, scratched rooftops, lost balance standing on top of the rear tire are gone. The Highspeed simply and quickly loads and unloads my bikes, and keeps them safe and secure in transit. And I've never noticed any noise from the rack on the highway (Subaru Outback w/factory rack). BUT my case is not likely yours. I live in the boonies and don't need to lock my bikes. All my bikes but one have thru axles, so this is *way* better than using adapters in a standard fork mount. If you care about being able to lock your bike, or how it looks, you'll likely get better information from another review. But if you're sick of dealing with thru-axle adapters and want something so simple your spouse and kids don't wait for you to put the bikes on the roof every time, this is the best rack I know of.

I'm going to agree wholeheartedly Erykmaxim. Rack works, not elegant, ridiculous number of cores to lock it up. I have it on top of a full size truck topper so the Yeti is pretty safe, i hope, with a good cable lock. I have a lot of yakima products and so many cores and keys it's insane!

I have been using Yakima roof mount bike racks for almost 30 years with both mountain and road bikes. My current vehicle setup is a Ford Flex with 3 rooftop bars which allows me to load 6 road bikes or 5 mountain bikes with absolutely no handlebar interference issues with other bikes. The newer mountain bikes use a 12, 15 or 20mm thru-axle which doesn’t work anymore with the older style 9mm quick release racks without an adapter which has many issues of its own. I had put off buying new racks as long as possible and after doing a lot of research I had decided: 1) the “front wheel-on rack” options (like the Frontloader) was not going to work for me since it is too hard to load 5-6 bikes with both wheels on, onto the top of a vehicle. 2) a hitch mount was not desirable since my car is long and low to the ground and I have a very steep driveway. The only other rooftop option was the new Highspeed which uses the bikes thru-axle to mount. I like the idea except for one very poor design issue - most mountain bikes will likely not fit into the axle clamp. I have a stock Santa Cruz 5010 with Fox fork and SRAM 180mm brake rotors. The bottom of the brake caliper hits the top of the rack before it can sit down into the thru-axle clamp. I cannot believe this is even an issue as this is a brand new design from Yakima. You may not have issues with bikes with 160mm rotors as the caliper doesn’t sit as low, but a 180mm is pretty standard these days, and many going to 200mm. I didn’t try any bikes with Shimano brakes but assume it’s going to be the same issue. Besides the one big Con above, here are my other Pros & Cons. Pro… The rack is easy to take on and off the vehicle (like 60 seconds). The rack head sits way out over the mounting bar to allow for rear hatch clearance (also a Con). The rack has a wide sturdy mounting head. Cons… The thru-axel clamp head sits way out over the mounting bar, this could be a problem if you turn the racks backwards, I had interference with my rear hatch thus limiting how many bikes I could carry. The rack has a wide head (like 9”) and if you are mounting several things on your roof racks then space becomes an issue. Each rack requires the additional purchase of up to 4 lock cores: 1 to lock the rack to the cross bar, a 2nd lock to prevent the ratcheting knob from being turned (this is your main theft prevention for thru-axel bikes), a 3rd lock for the cable lock which is hard to use and basically useless since it takes about 10 seconds to cut one, and a 4th lock plus the purchase of a locking 9mm quick release is required if you want to lock any bikes with a 9mm quick release fork. I wasn’t willing to risk not having half the bikes I try to load not fitting, so I returned the Highspeed rack and went with a hitch mount which is a whole other story with lots of issues.

I'm a big fan of Yakima products. I've had several of their products over the year. I like the sleek design of the high speed. The rack stands up to my quality expectations for Yakima. That said, I was incredibly disappointed to learn that the locking cores are not included with the rack and the skewer that is included doesn't lock. So, in short, the rack comes with a cable lock, but no way to use it. It will cost you an additional $40 for the four locking cores required for one high-speed. Also, you'll need to spend $30 to buy a new skewer if you want the skewer to lock. If you don't buy the locking skewer, the only way to lock the bike is to use the integrated cable lock. While it is sufficient in most cases, it can be easily cut by cable cutters. It is simply disappointing to have to worry about theses things after dropping $200++ on the rack. So heads up, if you plan on buying this rack. Your investment doesn't stop with the purchase of the rack...

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.