EK USA Ratchet Cat Tie Down Review

[desertrat]

When your walking amongst 100’s maybe even 1000’s of vendors at large shows such as SEMA held in Las Vegas you tend to look for items that stand out from all the others. There were many booths that offered cool stuff but it was the same stuff that you can buy anywhere and they all have the same features. I don’t know about everyone here but one of my pet peeves is problematic tie-downs so I am always looking for a better solution. When I strap my Grizz to my truck or trailer I would love to be able to ratchet the straps and go. But when you have a quality machine that you want to take care of you have to worry about where your going to attach the tie-downs, scratching the frame, plastic or the handlebars, and then what to do with the 15 feet of strap left over so that it doesn’t come loose and get caught under the trailer tire and suck your ATV off the trailer. Of the dozens of tie-down manufacturers at SEMA one of the booths that I visited at the SEMA show was the EKMotorsports booth. (ekusa.com) They have some pretty cool tie-down ideas that I think are going to ease some of my frustrations.

The one strap that got my attention was their Ratshet Cat tie-down strap. This strap is unique in several ways. The 1st thing that caught my eye was the cool colors and patterns, but then any strap can have cool colors, right? As I started looking at the Ratshet Straps I noticed a few differences that set these straps apart from the others. They have safety locking clips that keep the strap hook attached to your ATV or trailer even if the ratchet mechanism should fail or if the ATV springs were to compress.

Another cool feature is that the strap includes a soft tie option that eliminates two of my pet peeves. The scratching or damaging your ATV and the loose strap end flapping in the wind. These straps adjust from 24” to 78” which is plenty long enough to secure either the front, for which I need short straps, or the rear of my quad for which I need long straps and they have a 1200 pound tensile strength. And did I mention NO LOOSE ENDS!! If you decide that you need to use both hooks instead of the soft tie option, the soft tie loop becomes a grab handle that you can use to pull and tighten the strap before you ratchet it.

I also used the Ratshet Cat strap to secure a Pelican case to the back rack. As you can see it worked great as a cargo tie-down as well, with NO LOOSE ENDS!! The suggested retail price of these straps is $39.00 a pair and they come in 23 different colors and patterns. Since I have spent 100’s on the straps that I won’t even use because of the reasons mentioned above I will definitely be picking up a second pair for the other ½ of my quad. Check out their website for more cool ATV stuff like the Oh Crap Tow Strap that uses the same Soft Tie option and safety hooks and also comes in 23 colors.

EK Ekcessories, Inc.
575 West 3200 South
Logan, Utah 84321
Phone: 435-753-8448
Fax: 435-753-2411

E-mail: ek@ekusa.com
WWW: www.ekusa.com

[desertrat]

these are really nice straps. I dont know how they did it but, as you can see in the 1st pic they somehow got a pic of gunnys mug imprinted right on the strap...!!!