Bike rack for car

[DismalScientist]

A couple ways to go with this:
Look to craigslist for a back mounted rack. It clips to the top of the truck/rear door and under the bumper. (Make sure the top of the rear door/trunk is metal and not plastic–this happened to me–I had to return the rack.) These can be ordered new from Amazon for $50.

Do you have a roof rack? If so, take the front wheel off, rotate the bars 90 degrees and tie the bike and front wheel to the roof rack with used inner tubes. I brought three bikes to the Outer Banks this way. It felt like being the Joad family, but it worked fine.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@lordofthemark 79262 wrote:

I haven’t really wanted a car bike rack for the folllowing reasons.

A. I prefer not to use the car to get to better biking places – if I can’t bike the whole way from my doorstep, I can use the buses – so I would only use it occasionally – so its not worth the gas mileage impact to keep it on the car at all times – and I really don’t want additional clutter in our townhouse.

B. Other bike related purchases are more important to me

But our daughter, home on spring break, would like to take the old MTB back to campus. While I could give her advice on buying a bike up there instead, this would not only be cheaper, it would get her a bike much faster. I’m very happy to give her the bike for a number of reasons.

Our only car is a relatively new Honda Civic. The MTB almost certainly would fit in the back seat. If I had my druthers I would drape a sheet over the back seat to protect it, and stick the bike there. My wife A. Is more protective of the car interior than I am B. Thinks we might all three be going up for the trip (long story) C. Thinks I ought to have a bike rack on principle

If we are going to get one for this, we will need it in a few days. So – any recommendations for a bike rack thats not too pricey, would fit a Civic, etc would be appreciated.

I have a rack that should fit your car (Thule Passage 3, IIRC. Purchased in 2011). We don’t use it anymore since we now have a car with a roof rack. You’re more than welcome to swing by and make sure it fits and take it off my hands for $50.

[jabberwocky]

I have a pair of Yakima King Cobras, which are an older roof mount that grabs the wheels. But they would need some sort of rack and cross bars to clamp to, so probably wouldn’t work out of the box on the civic. Free if you want them though.

[CaseyKane50]

I have an older Yakima roof rack system (SST Tower) that I used on a Honda Accord. You can have it, if it fits on your car.

Just learned from the Yakima web site that the SST Tower will only fit fit on pre-1997 cars. However, the rails and bike trays are still usable with the the new Q towers.

[consularrider]

I’ve got a couple of trunk mount racks that would probably work and would be willing to give you a loaner if nothing else comes up. Send me a message for details.

[lordofthemark]

The MTB is still in Virginia – my daughter is breaking the trip in NYC to go to an event with a friend while my wife who is driving her is staying with family in Brooklyn. There really isn’t a good place to store the bike at my sister-in-law’s, and I didn’t want to add getting the back from and back to the car in NYC to my wife’s tasks – and neither of us is comfortable leaving the bike on a car rack, or in the car, in Brooklyn. So the plan tentatively is to take it up a different time (I will likely go up in early April.) Wife thinks we should get a new rack rather than pay for an old one – “we will use it a lot” She’s thinking trips to the beach to ride together, which is the kind of biking she wants to do. I reminded her that with the MTB in Troy, we would need to buy ANOTHER new bike to do that (didn’t mention that we haven’t been over the Bay Bridge much the last couple of years) and that would be ANOTHER few hundred dollars on top of the bike rack. She said ” look for one on freecycle” (I think the old MTB may have come from freecycle) I reminder her that we lucked out, that bikes almost never come up there (not that I’ve looked lately) (I think these days they are either sold on Craigs List or donated to Phoenix Bikes) She is, I am afraid, a bit averse to paying for anything used. So we may need to revisit this – meanwhile my D is eager to buy a bike from Troy Bike Rescue, the Collar City equivalent of Phoenix Bikes as far as I can tell from their website – it looks like an okay place, but of course I can’t see their inventory, and I think it may lean towards kid’s bikes. Now she wants me to go there and help her buy one when I up there next. Needless to say, my daughter and my wife, when they talk, its not about bikes.

[Author]

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