Okay I have just got a new car and don't want to carry my bike the way I used to - wheels in boot and the rest on a cloth in the back seat. So I am looking for a decent boot rack to fit a saloon and carry up to 3 bikes.
I have been looking around and have noticed a gulf in price range, halfords have one for £40 but I have heard bad things about these. Tesco have a Paddy Hopkirk one for the same price which I have seen elsewhere for £60-70 and then there are those from the usual suspects which cost upto £150.
Can anyone recommend any particular ones, I accept that the theory goes you get what you pay for but that doesn't always follow. I am also on a limited budget so would prefer to pay less if anyone has found a cheaper iten tht does the same job.
I've got the previous model VW Passat Saloon, and at the moment I have a Trek 6000, a Merlin Dual Dirt Bike and the Wife has a Coyote Dual Dirt Bike. However I am looking at a Spesh Stumpy FSR (Because two bikes is never enough) could this be a problem?
As Dave says they should be type approved its a legal requirement in the Uk but they would rather enforce speeding as opposed to a flappy bike on a flimsey bike rack... on the continent they have been known to ambush british cars on the way out of the port and slap an on the spot cash fine on you and make you remove the bikes...
more info here.. from the CTC website.. http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3826
Continental carriers – 2003.09
"Chapter and Verse" please regarding what is and what is not legal on the Continent (especially France) with regard to bike carriers for cars. I believe that some countries (Holland & France?) are unhappy with the "strap on" type as often seen in the UK and prefer (insist?) on the rigid attachment kind. D.J. Beynon – Haslingfield, Cambs
Basically the mainland countries have the same regulations about loads attached to cars as us. But they enforce them.
They enforce them especially in places where they expect to find a lot of cars with dodgy loads attached, i.e. holiday traffic, i.e. near ferry ports. And they enforce them with real on-the-spot fines (none of our semi-detached fixed-penalty-in-the-post fudge).
At home and abroad on any vehicle: you must not have anything, not even a spoke, obscuring the least little bit of any lamp or number plate from the view of an observer. And you must not have an "unsafe load".
Lights and number are easily fixed (at a cost) with a lighting board hung on behind the bikes. But the definition of an unsafe load is somewhat open to interpretation. If the carrier is approved by the car manufacturer, that is a good start. Few strap-on carriers are thus approved. In some countries that may be taken as an assumption against strap-on carriers – unless you have a piece of paper to show that your model of car is approved with the carrier in question. From members living in France we know that there are procedures for getting an approved strap-on carrier for some models of car – in France. Unfortunately the system in Britain is a whole lot more laissez-faire.
Generally it seems you are safer with a towball carrier, since the towball is a properly tested fixture. Roofrack cycle carriers are also more of a known quantity with recognised test procedures. That doesn’t make strap-on illegal, but if your load doesn’t rely entirely upon a few bits of webbing it’s just a lot less likely that the policeman will tug at them, suck his teeth and say "non".
And whilst British police do not really like to upset drivers, they seem to be taking a harder line since a motorcyclist was killed the other year – by a load of bikes suddenly dumped in his path! So whether or not you intend to take them abroad, it's worth getting a really solid method of transporting your bikes. Chris Juden
There's an Avenir high mount 3 bike rack on Evans at 80 or so quid. I use one and it's a great rack (althoguh if you get one, make sure you lube the bolts as soon as you get it or the buggers seize after a while and they're devils own job to sort out).
Thule make one for the VW Passat and it's got a TÜV certificate which means I think that the French would be happy about it too as the Germans are far more stringent about that kind of thing than the French. Why not a roof mounted bike rack? They are safer in the event that someone rear ends you and the bikes are more secure only downside is that your mpg goes up.
Make sure your bike fits on it. My mate has a boot mounted one, for which my bike is too small to fit on it the right way up and has to be hung upside down. its also an exercise in extreme frustration and self harm to get three bikes on it.
If we had three road bikes it would be fine, the two supports are simply too far apart for the shorter MTB frames.
