I'll share our experience in the quest for a GSD-compatible rack. It may be TMI but hopefully someone can appreciate these details. We own a Gen 2 Tern GSD S10 LX, and we bough the Kuat NV 2.0 rack a few months ago (actually after reading this thread). It works decently well with the GSD (more on that in a bit), but since I was feeling a nervous that the specs were not officially compatible, we bought a Hollywood Rack Sport Rider SE to see if it was any better (according to specs, the Hollywood rack should be able to carry the GSD, it has a higher weight limit, etc.). After installing and testing out the Hollywood Rack earlier this week, I think we are going to return it and stick with the Kuat!
My biggest complaint with the Hollywood Rack is it's REALLY hard to load the GSD onto it. The main issue relates to the way the center clamp bar/tower assembly is designed - it can be upright or folded down. If the tower and hooks are up, they end up being in the way while loading the bike, and if it's folded down it's nearly impossible to then raise up the tower once bike is loaded due to back deck/pannier interference (this may be avoided if you load the bike in the outer slot, but I wanted to get the heavy bike as close to the vehicle as possible for stability). Some other minor issues: The front wheel fender interferes with the wheel carriage unless the handlebars are folded & clamped down. Back wheel, you need to buy a separate small-wheel adapter to avoid damaging the derailleur (they say you can avoid this by downshifting all the way before loading, but I did this and the derailleur still hits the wheel carriage). That would be fine except we want to use this rack for both our GSD and our gravel bikes, but to do that we would need to uninstall the small wheel adapter before loading a bike with regular-size wheels, which would be quite annoying.
On to the Kuat NV 2.0! The main things we like about the Kuat NV 2.0:
- Really easy to use, thoughtfully-designed
- Confidence-inspiring, solid construction
- Compatible with our other bikes, so we can mix-and-match on the fly with minimal pfaffing
We load the GSD as seen in the previously-posted photo. Some tricks to make the GSD work on the Kuat:
- Adjust the wheel scoop into the lower position, it allows for a slightly longer wheelbase (~50")
- Lock the GSD's front suspension so the hook can securely compress onto the frame
- Having a front rack as in the photo (i.e. Tern Hauler) allows for secure hook positioning. Without this, you can still position the hook over the mount point for the front rack, but it feels sketchy
- You DO NOT need the 20-24 Wheel Adapter sold by Kuat due to the placement of the hook, and the fact that there's a front fender makes it useless anyways
- Maximally de-loading the bike (removing child seats, battery, etc.) is highly recommended
To summarize, even though the GSD's wheelbase is at or slightly beyond the official spec for the Kuat rack, and same goes for it's weight, we still like it better than the Hollywood Rack for it's design, solid feel, and ease of use.
