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Roof Mounted Racks ?



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 22nd 15, 06:06 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Bob[_19_]
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Posts: 19
Default Roof Mounted Racks ?

Hello,

Would appreciate any thoughts on.

Was about to get a Thule Rack for rear of my Outback.
But keep putting it off due my reluctance to drive with the major part,
if not all, of my rear visibility being blocked.

Re those roof mounted racks:

Any general thoughts on ?

*How popular are they ?

How hard, actually, to get the bikes on and off ?

Safe ?

Pros and cons ?

Thanks, appreciate the help,
Bob
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  #2  
Old July 22nd 15, 07:33 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Duane[_3_]
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Posts: 1,900
Default Roof Mounted Racks ?

On 22/07/2015 1:06 PM, Bob wrote:
Hello,

Would appreciate any thoughts on.

Was about to get a Thule Rack for rear of my Outback.
But keep putting it off due my reluctance to drive with the major part,
if not all, of my rear visibility being blocked.

Re those roof mounted racks:

Any general thoughts on ?

*How popular are they ?

How hard, actually, to get the bikes on and off ?

Safe ?

Pros and cons ?

Thanks, appreciate the help,


Not sure how popular they are. I see them a lot.

How hard to get the bikes on and off? Depends. How heavy is your bike?
I have a Thule roof rack with fork mounts and I like it. I have
mounts and the two outside ones are simple to use. The center one is a
stretch. I have a short ladder that I bring if I have to carry 3 and
one of us isn't tall enough.

How safe?
The rack foot mounts have casing that is locked so you need a key to get
to the bolts to loosen it. The actual mounts for he bike are also
locked. I guess you could get them off if you had time. Then again you
could just steal the car.

I think pros and cons are a personal thing. I don't like the rear rack
since I've been bumped from behind a couple times at a stop and such.
And like you say, it blocks the visibility. If you can use a trunk
mounted one, the price is not bad. And one rack works on most cars.

On the roof you have to watch overhead clearance. With mine you have to
take off the wheel. I had some of the big mouth mounts and they worked
but I didn't like the clunking noise from the hardware.
The feet that mount the rack to the roof is specific for the model of
your car. So if you change cars you may have to replace the feet.

Roof racks aren't cheap. But if the rear rack is mounted to a hitch the
difference isn't that much.


  #3  
Old July 22nd 15, 11:29 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Frank Krygowski[_4_]
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Posts: 10,538
Default Roof Mounted Racks ?

On 7/22/2015 1:06 PM, Bob wrote:
Hello,

Would appreciate any thoughts on.

Was about to get a Thule Rack for rear of my Outback.
But keep putting it off due my reluctance to drive with the major part,
if not all, of my rear visibility being blocked.

Re those roof mounted racks:

Any general thoughts on ?

*How popular are they ?

How hard, actually, to get the bikes on and off ?

Safe ?

Pros and cons ?

Thanks, appreciate the help,
Bob


I've used them for years and years. Funny you should ask today, because
today for the first time, my bike tipped over on the rack as I pulled
out of my driveway! :-/ I think it was because the front fork mount
had been re-adjusted to take our tandem adapter. Perhaps I hadn't
re-adjusted it properly to the different thickness of my fork dropouts.
Still, no damage, just some anxiety.

So: Decades of use with no other problems. Difficulty lifting depends
on the height of the car and the weight and size of the bike. Our
tandem takes two people to lift up there. My (heavy) touring bike is
more difficult than my wife's ten-pound-lighter bike. A friend has a
small SUV, and he carries a little ladder to get his bikes up there.
Our previous car (a tall little station wagon) was more difficult than
our current lower hatchback.

Gas mileage takes a hit with this thing, much more than with bikes on
the back. The bikes pick up more bugs, too. But the paint is treated
more kindly than with most back racks. Hanging the bike from its top
tube always seems a little kludgy to me, and with two bikes, it always
took some fussing to keep them from banging and scratching each other.

BTW, with some tall wagons and some SUVs, one can install fork mounts on
(perhaps) a wooden platform, and carry bikes upright inside the vehicle.
If that's possible with your car, I think it's the neatest solution.
I don't know if an Outback has that much vertical space, but our Pontiac
Vibe did if I took my seatpost out.

--
- Frank Krygowski
  #4  
Old September 7th 15, 09:33 PM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 884
Default Roof Mounted Racks ?

On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 10:06:45 AM UTC-7, Bob wrote:
Hello,

Would appreciate any thoughts on.

Was about to get a Thule Rack for rear of my Outback.
But keep putting it off due my reluctance to drive with the major part,
if not all, of my rear visibility being blocked.

Re those roof mounted racks:

Any general thoughts on ?

*How popular are they ?

How hard, actually, to get the bikes on and off ?

Safe ?

Pros and cons ?

Thanks, appreciate the help,
Bob


The hardest to find and most important part of a roof rack is the brackets. These are normally specialized for the specific car you own. If these do not fit properly they can damage your car or more often have a slight space below part of them that whistles like a train audible from inside.

The cross bars on Yakima are round and on the Thule they are square - no effective difference and most of the upper components fit on both.

The fork mounts work very well through if you have three mounts and a wider or tall car it's difficult to use the center rear facing one.

Personally I do not like the upright mounts. While they seem to work OK my experience with them is that the bike often will rock back and forth.
 




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