i agree that our bikes should be transported with care, but to say no rack is pushing it. i would risk more damage to my bike if i tried to squeese it in my backseat of trunk. so i bought i $400 yak rack, and sleep comfortably. It sucked to waste $400 on something that won't make me go faster, but it protects my investment rather well. as for those driving through drive thrus with their bikes. 1) what are you doing eating fast food going to/from a race? 2) get your a$$ out of the car. Are people that lazy that they cant leave their car to eat. sorry to vent. but i hate mcdonalds

Thanks, Tony for pointing out what I was wondering. What are all these bicycle people doing buying SUVs??? do you know how bad they are for the environment??

We have a nice Yakima roof rack, and it's been great. If you don't want a roof rack, get the ones on the back. But I agree with Tony - don't go buying an SUV or mini-van just to haul a bike! yeesh.

If you want extra room, at least go with a station wagon - we have the Subaru Legacy AWD, and it gets good gas mileage, holds a ton, and if we want to go full out we put two bikes on top & put a bike rack on the back & can have 5 bikes, 5 people. Worked great as a SAG vehicle during a local organized bike ride, and we don't have the gas wastage an SUV has.

My wife and I have an SUV (we offer no apologies for it, other than to say it certainly wasn't bought specifically to haul bikes), and so far I've transported the bike inside the vehicle like you describe.

But I've been considering getting a hitch mount rear rack because being closed in with the chain lube bothers us both (me a little, her a lot; we both have allergies but she has asthma). I've tried different lubes but they all affect us so far. I transported the bike to Ironman Florida after cleaning it and prior to lubing it, but I doubt I'll do that every time I ride with it.

Transporting it IN the vehicle is the best thing about travelling to races in the SUV, though, since I can leave the bike in it overnight. If I stored it on an external rack I would surely bring it into my motel room. Its one less thing to bother with early the next morning when driving to the race.

Without a helmet in my crash two years ago I would probably still be learning to use a spoon again, so I won't enter a debate on what the laws or rules should be; I'll continue to wear one regardless.

Sorry Tom when your 6 4 your bike will hardly fit in a mini-fan,it has to be a roof rack.

After last Sunday's cyclocross race, the last place I would have wanted to put my muddy bike would be inside my SUV. They just don't make the insides like they use to like the old International Harvester we had where you could open the drain plugs and literally hose out the insides. Now that was a real SUV!

I haven't seen any good internal anchor systems either. I recall a company called Bike Slider (I think) who made a fork mount board to go inside minivans and SUVs, but tried to help a 5'2" friend find one because she can reach the top of her SUV and we came up short. (sorry, bad pun) If anyone knows of an internal rack of sorts, please post it.

Rear mounts (hitch) are great for long trips but are a pian in the but for every day. I had a 4runner and could never fit it into my garage with the rack on the back. I adopted a the rear hitch mount for long tripa... and the roof rack for everyday, which meant I spent a lot of $ and could hall seven bikes if I really wanted to.

So pick your poison... rip the bike off the roof rack as you drive through... or chop them off the back when you close the garage door... I have simply made it a habit to hide the garage door opener that is in my car when I put th bike on top... and I never go to McDonalds!

The straw that broke the camel's back: Last year a guy who owns a local car dealership bought two nice hybrids from us and a car rack. He was headed to his vacation home up north with the bikes. Quite a well-to-do fellow and nice customer. Had a new Lincoln (from his lot). We installed a trunk mount rack, carefully, on his vehicle. I double checked it: Good to Go. It was Friday. On Monday the mangled remnants of both bikes and the scratched up car arrived back at our store. After copious apologies we GAVE him two new bikes and a rack with our sincere grovelling for forgiveness- after all- WE installed the rack and I double checked it. Unforgiveable. A week later his wife stopped in to buy a floor pump. She revealed to us that he had removed the rack prior to their trip to access the trunk, then replaced the rack himself prior to the accident. We said nothing. We sold our remaining car racks and never bought another. I'm severly jaded. Last time I buy two new bikes for a guy worth 20 times what I am.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

...but that is not the car rack's fault... it was the customer's. You bent over backwards with customer service and he knew it. He knowingly screwed you.

I think you should buy a car from him... run it into a pole and then bring it back and ask for a new one...

Basically, it's a QR skewer on a little frame that you can bolt down to the bed of a pickup truck - or, if you're smart, to a 2x4. Measure the (inside) width of your cargo hold, cut the 2x4 to fit, and then screw on as many bike tights as you can fit (while leaving space for the rest of the bike, of course). If you angle them a little, you can easily fit 4 inside an average SUV or minivan.

I think Nissan sells "custom" ones for the Xterra, but why pay a dealer hundreds of dollars for a $20 part?

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Dude, that totally sucks and I'm sorry you got hosed like that. But it wasn't the rack's fault, nor was it yours. After seeing some of the shit people will do to transport their bikes inside (and on top of) cars with home-build solutions, carpet and a bunch of bungy cords, wouldn't you feel better selling them a rock-solid system designed to carry bikes safely? I've never been a fan of those belt-strap trunk racks, but I don't see how a good roof or trailer hitch system could cause nearly as much problems as the one (I think) you sold that guy - let along the people who put some cardboard on the roof and then bungy them down. Scary!

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Tom, its not worth-it to ask the guy to make it right, or is there risk?

In my recent purchase of said minivan I had the opportunity to meet once again that variant life-form, the used car salesman. Nobody panic here, they're not all bad, and a good friend owns a dealership, but very few have I met that would not seperate you from as much of your money as they thought they could get away with. Asking this cat to be stand-up guy might be a fool's errand.

Khai, I wondered if my tower problem might have been the finish on the hood, quite smooth, but that was pooh-poohed by the powers that be. Your solution makes sense. The only way I survived the trip was cranking down the locking mechanism, so much so that I cracked the hinge at one point. Later found out that the company who sold me the bike bra also had a similar history with towers migrating. Sail effect? My rack worked well for about a year. Good luck with yours.

FWIW to the minivan critics :), I get better gas mileage with the minivan than with the sedan+roof-rack+bikes. Please, only buy a minivan/suv to haul bikes, I drive it out to the park so I can run too.

Tom, You've ALMOST done the impossible and convinced me to buy......achhh...a.... mmmmm..mmmmm..mmm....DAMNIT, I can't even say the word......minivvvvvvvvvvv...you know, one of those hauler thingamajigs what I see fat-a** soccer moms with their twin 180 lb. 6 year old rugrats puttering around in my fast lane in! Don't tell my wife! ;>

TriBriGuy

You don't have to buy a minivan and humiliate yourself. At least your married though- if you were single and you bought a minivan, you'd stay single. I have a Subaru wagon. Holds a lot of stuff and good in snow. I'm an un-compensated Subaru endorser. It's been a great car. There are a lot of minivan alternatives coming out now. There is no need to be branded a soccer mom.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

i completly agree. only one thing is certain anymore. people are slowly but surely getting dumber, and less trustworthly. because of those people when something goes wrong ligit. then you have to doubt them. it is unfortunate.

You can get wheel fork mounts at nashbar.com. Slap them onto a 2x8 or 2x10 and you've got a custom internal rack.

For a hitch rack, check out http://www.sportworks.com/stindex.asp

The "internal rack" that you can make with the bolt-on fork mounts and a 2X6 work great when they fit in your vehicle. Being in Detroit here we interact with a lot of engineers, automotive designers and product managers from Ford especially. It never fails to impress me how incredibly out of touch they are with the needs of automotive consumers who need to carry bikes, children and luggage inside a vehicle. At best, they have paid lip service to carrying bikes. At least the Nissan X-Terra had some minimal provision for an interior rack and and external basket to put wet clothing, such as wetsuits. Even though its pretty unlikely since they have to appeal to such a broad segment of the market to sell in adequate volume- manufacturers would do well to put a little more "utility" in the sport utility. My .02. rant

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

What about a PT Cruiser... that seems like a good candidate for a minivan like car that's not too generic looking.

And Subarus are great, but you'll have trouble fitting people AND bikes inside.

And for the ultimate minivan... I forget the car company (Renault?), but a few years ago, they stuffed a 700hp F1 race car engine in one of their minivans, put racing suspension, wheels, tires, & aero kit and drove it a few times before sending it to a museum. 0-60 in 3.6 seconds. It's in the PS2 game Gran Turismo 2.

And it now it looks like Nissan's new Quest will come with a Cervelo P3...

I think the bikes inside rule only works if your bike is clean or your interior is easy to clean.

Kelvin

Check out the new Honda Element at the honda website. Really practical, pretty economical and a wash and go interior. They're not available until the end of January in Canada (or so I've read) but I've read some rave reviews on them from automotive journalists. This may be the ultimate triathletes vehicle.

I remember seeing an ad for either the Element or one of the other "Gen Y" vehicles that are simultaneously hitting the market which shows a mountain biker riding out of the back of his car.

I hope those cars will make minivan styling (and fuel economy) obsolete...

Kelvin