Driving to the trail..

You get towbat ones which tilt for boot access and you can get roof mounted ones which you load at the side of the car and swing up.
 
suburbanreuben":2xlt7p0e said:
Around here, most of the car parks have bars across the entrance at 2m high, to stop camper vans etc... Some drivers remember they have a bike up top; some don't. :cry:
Now that would just have me laughing and laughing and laughing. . . unless it were me, of course.. in which case I'd probably trundle a 2 tonne truck over a pile of increasingly twisted metal a few times in a flat-out rage :lol:

I don't have a very good memory, quite often not remembering how I got home... a roof rack one would be a REALLY bad idea :lol:
 
I got a rack for my Smart fourtwo recently. It's design to fit directly to the chassis and as such is a very secure and well designed bit of kit.
Unfortunately the price including fitting by Smart-Mercedes means that most people probably won't buy them. I managed to get it fitted by a Mercedes technician 'out of hours' so I saved a few hundred quid on it.

Smart-Rack.jpg


I used to have a battered old van which could easily carry four bikes and plenty of gear, but the engine exploded on the motorway back in March.
Traded it in just in time to get £2000 on the scrappage scheme.

I would like to get another van at some point but for now the Smart is quite good fun to drive and gets good mpgs.
 
I had roof bars on my 320d and still got 600 miles out of a tank with four bikes on the roof and 4 guys in the car on a run to Belgium.

BUT the Mrs drove into a car park one day and did a bit of damage - it is SO easy to do. I drove somewhere with the Yeti on the roof and not knowing if there was a height restrictor, stuck a note to the dash to remind me to check.

Totally forgot until I went to get the bike of the roof ... I would have been VERY annoyed.

A mate of mine just got a towbar mounted one for his Land Rover Disco and it's an impressive piece of kit, but proper expensive.
 
I only have a Skoda Fabia, but the bike fits inside with ease, especially if you take the front wheel off. I run the car with no back seats anyway (for car performance reasons) so I can literally put the bike in end-down. Also handy as I can do the same with the golf clubs.
 
Kestonian":262sdfs5 said:
I had roof bars on my 320d and still got 600 miles out of a tank with four bikes on the roof and 4 guys in the car on a run to Belgium..
Best I had was 400miles to a tank and that was just me and the 3 kids.. 500 mile round trip (N.Wales and back) doing 50mph all the way there (and back - with a little higher speed mercy dash for a 7 year old who needed a wee :lol: )
Yesterday I went to Enfield and back, done 56mph as much as possible (no heavy braking, no hard accelerating) with wife and 3 kids in the truck and used 25quid in 140miles which is 30mpg and about 400miles to a tank.. any urban driving would kick the arse out of that.. reckon a roof-load of bikes would do similarly :lol:
Don't think I've ever had a vehicle that'd do 600miles to a tank of fuel :?

rosstheboss":262sdfs5 said:
I've got one of these....
Can't fit me, Wife, 3 kids and 4 dogs in that safely.. even if I could afford to buy it :oops:
 
suburbanreuben":2idkjvm2 said:
Around here, most of the car parks have bars across the entrance at 2m high, to stop camper vans etc... Some drivers remember they have a bike up top; some don't. :cry:

They have those here too.

5d3c01fb.jpg


IDB1":2idkjvm2 said:
I don't have a very good memory

I have what's called a fuzzy memory. I remember dimensions from files for customer's projects from 10 years ago, but misplace my car and/or house keys several times a week. Still, I have always feared being stopped at a traffic light with the bikes on a trunk/hitch mount and a guy in a GMC Suburban on the phone yelling at his divorce solicitor rear ending me, so roof rack or trunk/back seat it is.
 
IDB1":sz3i81v2 said:
TDIfurby":sz3i81v2 said:
I run the car with no back seats anyway (for car performance reasons).
Which makes how much difference?
In the real world. . .

With the weight of about 35kg removed, approximately 4 to 5bhp per ton at the amount of power I am pushing now. :D It can make the difference of 0.2 seconds (ish) over a 1/4 mile, and generally helps handling and acceleration.

I do it for the way it makes my boot much bigger though really. Convenience and all that.

This kind of shows what I mean. Usually have trim in etc. I took this whilst the rear end was being repaired and the engine being rebuilt with a new turbo / tasty bits for more power.

DSC00503.jpg
 

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