Hi,
driving over with our 4 bikes from UK. Anyone recommend a good bike rack? Have a rear-mounted one at present but it seems to keep slipping after a few miles. Was thinking of perhaps a roof one this time. I have a Landrover without towbar so can`t go for that option. Want something safe and stable.

Any advice anyone?
Jo

What kind of Landrover. Thule make the best racks IMO and the tow-ball mounted one is probably the best for more than two bikes. You can also get ones that mount on the roof, but they invite disaster in the land of underground car parks...

dave

Hi
Dave its a Freelander. no tow bar, I`ve no idea how difficult it is to put a tow bar on.I did see the ones for Freelanders but not sure about how safe they were, only seem to be for 3 bikes but I think you can get an adapter for a 4th bike.

Would a roof bike rack give me problems on the ferry too?
Jo

Mmmm a Freelander... assuming you have four occupied seats and or luggage you have just two and a half choices, as the rear door is not strong enough to support any rack as it is, although you can buy two bike "spare wheel" racks, if your (max 2) bikes are lightweight. I wouldnt recommend it. This means you are left with 2.5 choices.

1) Get some roof mounted Thule 591s which means you height will go up dramatically and its an ordeal loading and unloading.

2) Get a towball and tow electrics and bar and number plate (=expense) and a Thule rack which can carry up to four bikes I think.

2.5) Get a towball and tow electrics and bar and number plate (=expense) and a trailer. This is entering a world of pain.

If you are going to do this regularly,and are not selling your car soon I would bite-the-bullet and go for option 2.

dave

I have a Thule roof rack and find this to be pretty good for two bikes, and heavy bikes at that. Though I have an estate and am tall so can load and unload them easily. An SUV would be more of a problem.

Back in Oz I had a rack on a towball, which is much more convenient and doesn't hurt your fuel consumption as badly. But that was on a sedan, so I could still get into the boot. With an estate or SUV, if you want to load them on the back you need a rack that swings out of the way. The better Thule ones seem to do this, but the stronger one's only take three bikes, so depends how heavy your bikes are. But this is probably your most practical option, though probably no the cheapest.

I had no problem with the ferry with the roof racks. I just rocked up and they put me in the section where they put the trucks. I didn't even mention the extra height when I booked the tickets. If there are two of you, and you have problems, you can always unload the bikes and take them on seperately.

We are looking to buy a bike rack for our new Skoda Scout, and are considering the Rear-Door Mounted option by Thule. Does anyone have any knowledge about or experience with these?

We're looking for a rack that is easy to take on and off (vs a towbar hitch which can be more of a hassle than we'd like), but also keeps the bikes stable. Roof racks are nice but we've already had enough bad experiences with parking garages not to try that again!

The rear-door mounted rack has an option for a high-level mount to keep the rear lights visible. This might be a dumb question (considering we're in the land of rules), but is this a requirement?

Lets get this out of the way first:
"Do you have a bike rack for a Skoda ?"
"Sounds like a fair swap."

Thule are great. If you have underground parking then avoid the rooftop model. Buy one. Dont buy a cheap crap one from Jumbo, you will regret it. Yes you do need to keep lights visible, hence the high mount option.

dave

I have one for my Opel Zafira with the high-level mount. It works fine but had a bit too much side-to-side movement so I added a pair of straps from an old cheapo rack.

The Thule rear-door one is sturdy but not so light. With the Zafira fitting it takes a bit of maneuvering to unhook it from the top lip of the boot lid.

If you didn't have high-level mount then you'd have to sort out a light board, spare number plate, electrics and all that misery. A minor disadvantage is that, with the bikes on it, you're close to the entrance height for most swiss underground garages.

Whats the hassle? We have a thule 4 bike towbar mounted carrier and its on and fitted in a couple of minutes,my bikes have done over 140kph on the odd occasion without any problems,no worries in park houses or lower underpasses.

If its a scout why not just put them inside. We happily fit three bikes and three people into a Skoda Fabia Combi and drive all over the place. I almost permanently have my bike in the back of the Fabia. Its also a hell of a lot more theft resistant then mounting them on a rack on the outside!!!

I had first bought the Thule towbar model but after all the adjustment possibilities had been exhausted it still had a lateral rotation of +/- 10 degrees. Not something you want to see in the rear-view mirror.

The Thule mechanism didn't really fit my Opel-standard towbar "neck" and all the movement had also made a bit of a mess of the ball and neck. Luckily the car accessory place (one of the best I've seen here, halfway between Regensdorf and Dielsdorf) took the rack back after observing the problem.

Hillseeker - before you buy it try asking the shop if you can at least try the attachment mechanism (not the whole rack because that can take some time to assemble). You could also ask on a Skoda forum.

Thanks you all (or as they say where we come from, ya'll) for all the helpful input. It sounds like the best option would be a Thule towbar version, if it really is that easy to put on and take off, and if we can get it to be stable. Can't have our precious bikes blowing around in the breeze!

And Eire, I agree that the safest place for the bikes is in the car - Especially with the low parking garages around here. I used to permanently store my road bike in the back of my Tiburon in the US. But with mtn bikes I wasn't sure if it's more of a mess when they're covered in smutz... And I wanna see how you manage to fit so much stuff "happily" in a little Fabia! That is impressive.