Carrying a bicycle?

[Fen]

We broke my wife's Citroen AX's rear window with ours, but it was because it came with little bits of tube that were supposed to spread the load when behind a glass panel. That was fine, but they got trapped in the profile of the shut when opening and glass doesn't bend much.

The rack wouldn't be horizontal on the back of a cab as one leg sits on top of the bumper and the other on the boot lid. Mine was adjustable so you could make the prongs the bikes sit on lie at an angle to suit the position. The hooks over the boot lid were PVC coated so they didn't mark the paint and the edge of the panel is surprisingly strong. All that said it is still not the best way to carry bikes if there is an alternative available.

 

[sawood12]

Yep, Fen has said it. The rack is adjustable so you can change the angle of the bikes - though it probably would be lying a bit flatter than on a hatchback. I agree that the racks on the back are not as good a solution as a roof rack. They do sway about a bit. When i've used a roof-rack mounted bike rack I basically can drive with very little consideration that i've got bikes on the roof at all. Decent racks, like Thule for example, secure the bike so well I could probably do a trackday with a couple of bikes on the roof.

 

[Fen]

I easily did 3 figure speeds and then went on to open the height restriction barrier at a Peage booth with my bikes on Thule carriers and aero bars last June... No damage done, thankfully.

 

[zcacogp]

OK. Interesting, thanks.

I do recall, in my youth (when I was a Senior Canoeing Instructor, as well as 3 stone lighter than I am now and a hell of a lot fitter!) regularly carrying canoes on roofracks, often with a vertical bar in the middle so you could rack two canoes on each side. Total height (on a Mk1 Golf) got to the thick end of 7 1/2 feet ...

I also recall the time my dear Mum borrowed my car, with such a roofrack attached. And drove into a multistory car park in downtown Kidderminster. Once I got over my initial fury, I realised that the roofrails were utterly undamaged, but the roofrack was twisted to bu99ery ... thankfully there were no canoes on the car at the time! It must have made a really, really awful noise as she went into the car park (and I am amazed she carried on driving around it!)


Oli.