Pickups are the ultimate utility vehicles. With quad-cabs now, they’re even great family vehicles. The only challenge with a pickup as a family vehicles is moving people and stuff at the same time. Enter a roll up truck bed cover. It changed the game for my family on trips. I went from wrestling and cussing at tarps on the side of the road to not worrying about our luggage. Obviously, any truck bed cover is going to transform the bed of a pickup into a safe, dry place to store luggage, etc. So why a roll-up cover over folding hard covers, or other styles? Two reasons: 1) Cost: Less than half the cost of a hard cover at around $200. 2) Puts Away Completely: Don’t lose any storage space when you want to roll up the truck bed cover. You can still use 100% of the bed to move your “friend’s” refrigerator by simply rolling the cover up. I bought the cheapest one I could find that fit my pickup. After 30 minutes of installation, mines been on for 2 years with no signs of wear. I don’t usually need the truck bed covered, so it stays rolled away – protecting it from UV, water, and wind except when needed. As far as security goes, hard covers are certainly harder to break into, but our soft cover has worked well. Locking the truck bed hides your possessions and this was enough to get some curious folks to steal from the truck next ours and not ours on one trip. Cheap, effective, game changing. That’s my definition of a cool tool.

-- Jamie Wallace 02/14/20