If you intend on taking more than one off-road rig to the dirty woods, then you might find yourself running out of trailer space at some point. If the entire family goes out on an excursion, then you will most definitely need more room as the little tikes become bigger tikes and start getting their own machines.
Another thing that always gets an off-road rider down is that search for trailer parking in the local eatery or even at the hotel where we all fear that someone might just want our rig more than we do. Now obviously if you have a family rig set up for your team of pot lickers you might not be able to get away with just taking the truck and going solo. But if you are just a one woman/man band then a truck bed cover is the only solution for you.
How do you solve these problems without breaking your mind or wallet? Simple: Diamondback Bed Covers. As the school season progressed a tech-based marketing class (ENGR407) at Penn State would challenge students to come up with a project that the deemed to be a need and develop it to a point where they could then build a marketing program around it. That is just what Ethan Wendle and Matt Chverchko would do but not without a few challenges. Ethan had decided to go to Penn State and for business because his father was also a successful entrepreneur himself. Matt had actually decided to take a minute or two off from college to earn some money by working at the local Co-Op. They first met in the marketing class in 2002.
Matt, growing up hunting, had realized the need for some type of protection for the valuables left in the back of his Ford F-150 when a deer hunting tree stand had disappeared one evening. This spawned a desire in Matt to find some form of secure device to cover the bed of his truck. Unfortunately, at the time there were no real good options to protect anything in the bed that would also allow the use of the top of that same cover. “There were only vinyl or fiberglass covers available then” says Matt. Being a DIY type of guy, he set out to build his own cover. It was this cover that brought the two together and after pitching their idea, they actually won the challenge over the entire class.
This gave Ethan and Matt something to chew on from that point in their lives. Everyone knew that there was really something to this bed cover and it was this class project that gave these two their future. Ethan decided that it would be time to leave the college behind and for these two too pursue the dream of owning their own business. Matt was close to graduating and in his words, he had no prospects or job offers so the bed cover was the shining light in that moment. To solidify that decision the Diamond Back cover had also won best product overall at a design expo so it was off to the races from that point on.
Looking back at the start of Diamond Back Covers, many of the first products had been hand assembled in Matts home at the time. It was in the fall of 2003 that the dynamic duo decided to rent space in the Moshannon Valley Enterprise center just down the road from their homes. This would be the tipping point for Diamondback and Ethan says that watching the massive machines being lifted by crane into the building really solidified the fact that this had to work as there was no going back. As time rolled on and the company really began to grow economic history would bring about many changes and in the 2008 fiscal year Diamondback was no immune to the economic down turn. Luckily for all of us they did survive and in 2011 decided to start offering their products direct to consumer. Fast forward just a few more years to 2014 and the pair of entrepreneurs are well on the road to success with plans to build their own facility in the Phillipsburg Pennsylvania area. It was the desire to build a better mouse trap that gave this company its start but the backbone to the plan besides its founders, was to build a company that people wanted to and loved working for. This ingenious pair of college friends became what some would consider the brightest minds in the world simplistic yet very forward-thinking off-road toy hauling.
So, there you have a little history on the company that we trusted with our off-road vehicle hauling. Looking into the advantages of the Diamondback bed covers, we now realize just how important this tool is for us and how it allows our valuable space in the truck bed as well as on top of the bed cover to be transported without worry. Our very own truck has the ATVR cover installed. This means that we can haul our ATV anywhere we need to safely with all of our riding gear tucked neatly underneath.
Features of these incredible covers include Diamond Plate Aluminum construction. I am not an mind reader, nor have I even asked, but I bet this is where the name Diamondback might have come from. This tough surface gives traction to the tires when loading and with the black spray on liner applied it has maximum traction for those rainy days or mud filled tires. Speaking of loading, these bed covers come with some incredibly heavy-duty ramps that are 12ft in length. These folding ramps are strong enough for a UTV and feature a three-inch sidewall to keep the machine tracking straight up the ramp. This is a very good, confidence inspiring feature because loading an ATV onto the bed of a truck can be a little nerve racking to say the least.
If you look at the cover once installed, you will notice the round ramp rails mounted on the rear of the cover. Some also get mounted to the sides of the cover depending on the direction you plan to load the ATV or the type of bed cover you purchase. Some of these heavy-duty tops will allow you to load two ATV’s from the side. These rails are where the folding ramps lock on to prevent any ramp movement or slipping during the loading process, It is actually near impossibly to pull the ramp off of the cover if properly installed for loading. That is a huge confidence booster as well. I mean, who wants a ramp sliding around under you when loading on any style trailer or transport vehicle!
Installing the Diamond bed cover is pretty easy and for the first time around you might plan on about a two-hour job. The center section of these tops has to be clamped in place and then the front and rear wings (depending on the top you get) simply slide onto their perspective hinges and lay down. The top is then ready to be used.
Overall the story behind the product is an incredible one and very inspirational. Building a better mousetrap for a tree stand became a multi-million dollar company which is, in our humble opinion, the best product for the intended use by far.
