Yakima believes in connecting friends and family through adventure and experience. For 35 years their in-house team has been dedicated to designing products with people in mind. Their user-centric philosophy shines through their redesigned product line for 2016.
Colin Meagher investigates the new and improved racks in his Pinkbike article “Yakima Gets a Makeover for 2016.
Excepts from Pinkbike.com:
“The Whispbar is the top of the line cross bar in the Yakima line, and it redefines a quiet riding system with a 70% reduction in wind noise. It comes with the new end cap design of tower as well as the Through Cap tower. The cutaways of the Whispbar show that it also has an internal rib/I-beam type of reinforcement to add rigidity and strength to its svelte, aero shape.”
“The new JetStream bar is an extruded alloy bar; the cut-away shows the internal reinforcing of the bar. It may not be as svelte as the new Whispbar, but it’s nearly as quiet when it comes to rocketing around the countryside with one on the roof.”
“The new CoreBar; as the cutaway shows, is a simple roll form steel aero bar with a coating to allow rack accessories a bit more bite ala the old round bars. It, too, is almost as quiet as the Whispbar, as well as being a lot easier on the wallet than the Whispbar system. It’s also the first steel aero type cross bar on the market.”
“Nearly every back of the vehicle bike carrying accessory from the trunk racks to the spare tire racks to the trailer hitch mounts such as the Literider three or the Ridgeback 4 gets a bit of a collagen injection by way of the addition of the Super Cush bike frame carrying system. This system gently cradles any bike vs the older clamp style that wasn’t quite as, well, cush”
“But if the bars are the face of the new StreamLine system, the manner in which one attaches those bars is the heart and soul of the new system. To accommodate them, Yakima had to completely re-design all their towers, making them stronger, more streamlined to fit in with the design philosophy of the new bars, more adaptable by building in pitch adjustments, and by creating a variety of foot pads and clips for various roof and rail attachments – the clip library for the new towers can now accommodate an astounding 95% of existing vehicles on the road today without any modifications. And if you’ve got the old round bars and all the accessories to go with them but just need a new set of towers and clips for your new rig, no problem: the new towers and clips will also work just fine with the old round bars, too; as Yakima’s Product manager put it at the roll out for the new racks, “We can party with everyone.”
Read the full article on Pinkbike.com
Find out more about Yakima racks on Yakima.com
