I have used a trailer hitch bike rack for years but my new car doesn’t have a hitch…and I loose the power train warranty if I add an aftermarket hitch.
I am looking at a roof mounted rack and I wanted to see if anyone has strong opinions on a fork mounted rack as opposed to a swing arm where you keep your front tire on. I’ve noticed more fork mounted racks on the road and I am wondering why…it seems like the swing arm would be more convenient.
Thanks
Go fork-mounted. More stable for sure.
I have the Thule Echelon (I think), Thule’s best fork-mounted roof bike rack and have been happy with how easy it easy to secure the bike and lock it.
I’ve got a fork mounted Thule and I love it. Feels very stable and I"ve gone through some rough winds/rains with my bike on it and it held up fine.
Go for the fork mounted, I got the arm rack and my front tire kept coming out of the rack so I had to buy extra straps to keep it on.
If i could go back I would have opted for the fork mount.
I’ve never tried the arm kind but have been happy with the fork mount.
At times I wondered if it would be better to get the arm kind to be uber-lazy and not have to take off the front wheel. But from what I’m reading I’ll stick with what I have.
I prefer a swing arm. Just got mine and stability has not shown issues, just travelled 840 miles in some pretty harsh winds too. Yakima front loader, I would skip the high roller as it’s more expensive but gives no real advantage.
Put me in the “strong believer in swing arm” condition. The front wheel isnt huge but because of the rigid shape, it’ll take up more than proportionate space. For example, I have bucket seats and it’s a pain.
Fork mount. Get Yakima towers and bars, but then go to www.rockymounts.com for the trays. Solid, good looking, very inexpensive compared to Thule or Yakima. Great products and good people behind the company.
i’ve used yakima swing arm and fork mounted racks.
personal opinion is that fork mounted racks are far more stable. i would recommend a fork mounted system.
I went with an Inno fork-mount rack, and am very happy with it. The advantage of the Inno is that it mounts to factory crossbars, so you don’t need to buy the Thule or Yakima bars/mounts in order to attach the bike mount.
http://www.racknroad.com/product/inno-factory-locking-fork-mount.html
When you put your bike on the roof, always throw your garage remote into the trunk. I’ve messed up my car, bike, rack, and garage by forgetting it’s up there.
You lose the warranty if you add a hitch? WTF is up with that? Is that common?
Just purchased and installed the Yakima Forklift racks on my wife’s RAV-4 a couple weeks ago and I like them. I ordered them from REI online - they have a nice step-by-step guide that selects the proper gear based on your vehicle, factory rack, etc. They shipped fast and installation onto the factory roof rack was a breeze - no need to buy additional cross-bars or feet. We went with the additional SKS lock cores for the skewers, which were inexpensive, easy to install and well worth the peace of mind. My only dislike is that the factory cross-bars on the rack are arched, so the bikes don’t ride quite upright and that the stock strap for the rear wheel tie-down isn’t quite long enough to accomodate an 80mm deep wheel - no sweat on the latter, as wheel swapping is no problem for transit. The racks are quite stable and not overly expensive - I’d recommend them.
I’ve had both fork and ‘stand-up’ style mounts; even used them together to stagger 3 bikes together in barely over the normal space of 2 (couldn’t do a reverse-facing fork mount like the pro team vehicles cuz the rear tray wouldn’t fit w/ my front fairing)… anyway, my pref is for the fork mount. More solid/stable, and doesn’t ride as high (easier to reach, less worry about vertical clearance, and slightly smaller hit to fuel economy), and simpler = less cluttered/gunked up if you just leave it on all the time (especially if it sits outside a lot).
I love my two yakima forklifts.
Thanks to everyone for the recommendations. It looks like the fork mounts are the most popular with this crowd.
I was dead set on a swing bar mount until I followed one on the highway a few weeks back and it was really swaying back and forth a lot!
As a sort of random aside, driving home from a race on Sunday, I saw a roof rack with four fork mounted bikes on it.
It looked like he had bought Thule feet, installed two really long poles perpendicular to the length of the car, and then put four trays on there.
Never seen a 4 mount before on the roof, looked pretty badass.
If you alternate the direction of the bikes, you can fit four with no problem on most standard roof width crossbars.