BACKCOUNTRY GETAWAY GOAT TAILGATE PAD REVIEW

Words by Sourpatch | Photos by Dusten Ryen

A new “riding season” is finally upon us and you know what that means…it’s time to upgrade that old worn-out tailgate pad to something new. Over the last year, we have reviewed quite a few tailgate pads from the Cache Basecamp system; the RaceFace T2; a single bike option from Bomber Strap and much more. Thus far, the RaceFace T2 has been my personal favorite, but the folks at Backcountry are hoping to change that with their Getaway Goat Tailgate pad. It’s going to be hard to beat the T2 pad when it comes to transporting your pride and joy mountain bikes in safety and style when ragging your truck up the dirt roads, but the Getaway Goat pad looks to have a few tricks up its sleeve that may put up a challenge.

THE LAB
The Getaway Goat Tailgate Pad is a Backcountry Exclusive. Backcountry offers this tailgate pad in two colors – plain black or white with a Topo camo design; and is available in both medium and large sizes to fit mid-size and full-size pickup trucks respectively. The medium is designed to hold 5 bikes whereas you can squeeze 6 bikes on the size large. As with most tailgate pads, the Getaway Goat has a 600D Polyester outer shell that has a DWR coating to fend off the elements, with the interior being made up of a polyester polar fleece to help prevent paint scratches. Four straps secure the pad to the tailgate, while Backcountry’s Compression System fine tunes the fit around the brim to keep it firmly in place on both straight and curved tailgates.

The Getaway Goat tailgate pad utilizes raised outer padding on both sides of the tailgate pad to help keep bikes from any unwanted side to side movement. Along with the raised pads, bikes can be secured to the pad via the carbon-friendly downtube straps. Backcountry also equipped this tailgate pad with a large storage pocket which is perfect for pedals, tools, or any dirty gear you want to keep out of your gear bag. There’s also a large adjustable flap to access the tailgate handle and backup camera. Backcountry made this flap in 2 pieces to help accommodate the wide variety of backup camera designs in tailgates across different brands.

THE DIRT
First things first, the install. The Backcountry Getaway Goat Tailgate pad installs in less than 5 minutes thanks to the familiar 4 strap retention system. Backcountry’s Compression system is the real highlight on this pad, this system helps refine the fit on tailgates that have a convex lip to them, like the one on my Sierra. A quick pull on the Compression straps and the pad now has a “tailor-like” fit on the tailgate, which helps to keep the pad body flush with the tailgate as well. While the tailgate handle flaps do not look as refined as the handle cut-out on the RaceFace T2, they do offer easier access to the handle and better backup camera visibility, so It’s a reasonable compromise.

Now for what really matters – carrying the bikes. At first glance, The Getaway Goat looks like it has all the right stuff to keep the bikes in place and secured, and for the most part it does just that. Unfortunately, once I began loading bikes into their slots, I noticed that the fork indentation was improperly aligned (in line with the downtube slot), this does not sound like a big deal, but once a second bike was added the issue became apparent. With this design, the fork of the second bike solely sits on the tire of the first bike, not utilizing any of the fork padding. This was with both single and dual crown bikes in both 27.5 and 29-inch wheel sizes. The first bike sits okay in the tailgate pad, but once you add another bike into the neighboring slot the bike sticks up high into the air. Having a six-bike tailgate pad that doesn’t fit 6 bikes properly is a bit of a problem. Now, it is entirely possible that this fitment issue could initially stem from modern, curved tailgate designs but it is hard to say for certain. The downtube straps do a solid job of keeping the bikes in place and have yet to leave any marks on the bikes, but they’re not suitable for a monstrous eMTB downtube.

Outside of that rather large issue, the Getaway Goat Tailgate pad has proven to be durable and shows little signs of wear after months of use and baking in the Oregon summer sun. The large inner pocket on the pad has come in handy many times, being able to store pedals and any undesirable gear that doesn’t deserve to go back in the gear bag after a ride.

The Wolf’s Last Word

I really wanted to like this Getaway Goat tailgate pad, but the design oversight on the fork slot placement has made that almost impossible. That slot needs to be moved over a tick to not be perfectly in-line with the frame to allow for the front wheel to sit at the proper angle. If that change gets made, it will make the Getaway Goat pad an easy recommendation. The rest of the pad is well built and offers plenty of great features and can easily be adjusted to accommodate many of the full-size tailgates out on the market today. As of now, if you are in the market for a tailgate pad, the RaceFace T2 remains my top recommendation out of the pads I have tested.

Price: $169.95
Website: Backcountry.com

Disclosure: Our team selects all of the products we review and do so with honesty and objectivity in mind. Some of the products we receive come directly from Competitive Cyclist, who also value our readers and have offered them a 15% discount (exclusions apply) on their first purchase by using LOAMWOLF15. Through this program we may also receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thanks for your support, TLW.