Please note that said bike is not a $3,000+ carbon masterpiece, rather it is my Trek 2100 that is my Tri bike.
Now before flaming me too much, and saying that I should carry the bike in the car, let me just say that if any of you have a plan for fitting the bike in a Mazda 6 sedan with me, my wife, a 80 lb Golden Retriever and a weeks worth of luggage and race gear - I am more than happy to hear it. Also keep in mind that the reason we are driving frm Detroit to Denver is because we cannot afford to go any other way, so I want to hear nothing of fancy bike shippers at over $100 per way. Also I have heard enough bad things about Fed Ex and UPS breaking bikes that I don’t want to pay $75 each way to end up with no bike the day before the race.
What I am looking for is advice on making sure that my bike and my family survive this long trip to my second Triathlon.
You may now commence with the sarcasm (please refrain from references to putting the wife on top of the car instead of the bike - thanks)
Yes the seats do fold down, but do you know how much room my dog can occupy? Plus It is good for him to be able to move around on long trips, it cuts down on the times we need to stop to walk him.
I drove from new orleans to boston with six bikes on my roof (including an expensive uberbike) and none were worse for the wear (actually one rubbed a dimes worth of paint of anopther, but that is mre the result of putting 6 bikes on a 50cm saris load bar). Your car insurance should cover road dammage to your bike if something catostrophic happens. eddie.
Coming out for the Boulder Peak on July 24th. I am racing with with a couple of buddies and then staying for one of their weddings the following weekend.
I find that if you get a bunch of old t-shirts they work great for a bike cover while on the rack.Keeps the bug accumulations to nil.
A big XL one will easily fit the whole front end of your bike, then get a bunch of safety pins and pull and pin together all the loose ends.
Not the prettiest…BUT- it will keep possible thieves away from your Trek.
My friend covered his entire bike w/ t shirts on a long trip and once he arrived it was as clean as can be.
I suppose I ought to chime in here, . Just fyi, frontier has added some more flights to Denver. Also, Midwest Express will let you check your bike for $25. But I can’t get to TVC for under $400 at the moment.
So are you planning to drive straight through? It will probably be like 18-19 hours from Detroit. I’ve done it (twice) from GR in about 17 hours. Now, driving Colorado to Michigan in a U-Haul with no tape deck and towing my car wasn’t very much fun. Stop for the night somewhere in Nebraska, if you have to. Kearney, Grand Island, North Platte, or Ogalala all have decent hotels since they’re all on I-80. I’d think bike on top with a garbage bag on it to keep the bugs off (if you don’t want to spring for a bike-bra thing) should be OK, but I have no experience with it. Other than that, Thule box, hitch rack or Roadqueen Family Truckster are probably your best bets. Can you lash luggage onto the roof at all? That would probably help a bit.
Also, I can check around and see if any local shops will rent/demo/loan out a bike for the day, but I’m not promising anything yet.
I’d imagine that if you just took some clear packing tape and quickly taped the shifters, head tube, front of the seat tube, basically the font of everything and taped the headset seals you’d be good to go. Shouldn’t take more than 5 min.
You can take your SUV and - are we live? I’m sorry back to the news. Seriously, I am not an SUV fan - too big, bad handling, too much gas, the list goes on. I long for a station wagon (bought my 6 before the wagon was available). Give me an Outback XT or Legacy GT over any ute on the market, and I will smoke you all!
I usually do road trips with 3-4 bikes on the roof and 2 Golden Retreivers and other gear in the car with me and my girlfriend, this all fits in a VW Golf… actually, I can fit more in my Golf than I can in my Xterra which is quite surprising. I cover the bikes as best I can and use the neoprene covers from Performance for the road bikes (Cervelo P3 and Giant TCR Comp)… I haven’t had any problems so far… well, other than one of the dogs puking all over the inside of the car once but that’s another story
I drove my mountain bike cross country on the roof rack about ten years ago and when I got to Colorado the hubs and bottom bracket were packed with a fine grit. I had to repack the hubs and replace the bottom bracket. If I was going to do it again I’d take special care to protect them, maybe by reinforcing the seals with an old inner-tube. I’d also cover the front end of the bike to protect it from the million bugs it will impale along the way. Sounds like a great road trip. Have fun.
No. Get your bike inside and put friends or loved ones on the roof. If the room doesn’t have a spare bed for the bike they can go on the floor as well…
. Just fyi, frontier has added some more flights to Denver. Also, Midwest Express will let you check your bike for $25. But I can’t get to TVC for under $400 at the moment.