Yakima Boa Bike Rack Review

Before buying this mount, measure the distance between your bike's fork dropouts to the rear wheel. Then look at the recommended crossbar spacing for your vehicle in the Yakima Q Clip instruction booklet. If the measurements are not similar (ie. rear wheel not centered over the rear crossbar, short roofline and long wheelbase bike), then the rear wheel will hang far behind the rear crossbar and there's a good chance that the rear towers will shift forward when transporting your bike. This can result in roof damage from the shifting clips and the bike's rear wheel contacting and scratching the roof.

The Boa is Yakima's most economical rooftop bike mount and it shows. If you live in a low crime neighborhood and remove your bike and rack when you are away from your car, this mount will probably work just fine for you. Or if you absolutely need to minimize the footprint of the rack when it's off your vehicle.

The Boa pod is mostly made of glass-filled polymer. There is a flimsy plastic cover that is secured by the skewer and covers the heads of the 3 hex mounting bolts. Unfortunately, even when locked, this cover can easily be pried and cracked open by hand revealing the 3 bolt heads. I complained and Yakima responded that they only provide theft deterrence and cannot guarantee against theft. This does not even approach deterrence.

The Boa mount comes with Yakima's universal locking skewer with a polymer lever, stainless rod, and round steel nut. If the skewer is closed and locked but the handle is in the wrong orientation and there's insufficient tension, then it's a simple matter to rotate the handle counterclockwise to loosen the nut and steal your bike. The lever and cam are plastic and will deform and wear with use. When no bike is loaded, the only way to secure the mount is to tighten the nut further and then close and lock the skewer. However, adjusting the nut defeats the purpose of providing a long-throw skewer.

Adding a long tray converts the mount into a Copperhead mount. However, given the security concerns, I returned this mount and purchased a Yakima Steelhead mount instead. The Steelhead has a clamshell clamping design and is mostly metal. It comes with a stainless metal skewer that has a special locking pin and e-clip on the nut. When the skewer is locked, the clamshell cannot open and the skewer nut cannot be removed even if it is not tightened and tensioned against the mount body. As with the Boa, make sure that the skewer lever rests against the crossbar when locked so that it can only be turned clockwise tightening (and not loosening) the nut.

If you don't want to spend much more than the cost of the Boa but want to use your SKS lock cores, consider purchasing a Steelhead body (new or used) and a Rocky Mounts Lariat tray. You will need to drill a hole in the tray to mount the Yakima head. The Rocky Mounts crossbar mount is compatible with Yakima's round bars and comes with all hardware, and their wheel strap is also less expensive than Yakima's.

If you are using or considering Yakima Q Towers, I have a separate review of that product on Amazon.


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Product Description:
The Yakima Boa Bike Rack is a slick, affordable fork mount system for latching your bicycle to either round or square crossbars.

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