CATEGORIES
CATEGORIESAfter a general purpose roof rack or rooftop cargo carrier, the most popular rooftop accessory for your adventuring needs this summer is a bike carrier. As with most things, there are things you should consider before you jump in and make the decision.
If you’ve already went ahead and equipped your adventuremobile with a roof rack, there are a lot of choices for you to mount your bike on the roof of your car. The fastest method is keeping both wheels on your bike during transport, but using the axle or front fork is the most secure.
Whether you’re stoked to get on the trails after a long day of work or completely exhausted after ripping mile after mile of single track, taking the extra time to remove and replace your front wheel might not be your favorite thing to do. Yakima, Rocky Mounts, Thule roof rack, and others offer options that allow you to keep the wheels on your bike, keep it upright, and keep it off the paint on your car.
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If you’re considering the front tire bike mount, an adjustable arm with a hook or a “wheel hoop” pivots into place and is positioned over the front tire. You then adjust its length to fit your tires and lock it in place. This is what keeps your bike from tipping over. Most modern roof racks like this are pretty universal and will work with your big, plus-sized 29’er tires just as well as your small and sleek road tires.
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If minor wear and tear on the sidewall of your tire worries you (really, it’s so negligible), there’s a similar system that will pivot into place and clamp onto your frame. This also adds an additional strap that secures your front tire to the wheel tray. As long as your bike frame is 3.5 inches in diameter or less (which most of them are), you’ll have no problem mounting your bike.
The next option is more secure and a little more popular than the first bike rack option but not quite as fast. It requires removing your front tire and mounting the fork directly to the rack. One thing you want to pay attention to is the style of axle you have on your bike: quick release or through-axle.
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For a bike with a quick release axle, there are slots at the bottom of the fork (called dropouts), the axle is hollow, and there’s a skewer that goes through it. To attach it to your a car roof rack, you use the quick-release to loosen the grip on the fork and slide the skewer in and out of that slot while it's still going through the wheel.
With a through axle car bike rack, there is a completed ring on each side of the fork instead of dropouts. You remove the axle entirely from the side of the wheel hub in order to remove the wheel.
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The bike racks mimic these axle mounts so luckily there are adapters if you accidentally get the one that only works for the type of wheels you don’t have.
And what do you do with that front tire? Well, you can either store it somewhere inside the vehicle with you or get another attachment accessory to keep it on the roof.
With either of these roof rack mounting methods, the back wheel is secured to the wheel tray with an adjustable strap. The wheel tray is also universal so it can slide back and forth for any sized frame and secure even the fattest of fat bike tires
