Recommendations for cheapest roof bike rack.

[gazzarose]

Evening ladies and gents,

We're going on holiday next month to a glamping type place, and taking the bikes. A hardtail 29er, a 26" MTB and a 20" MTB. I've been looking at the roof bar mounted racks, and theres a huge spread of prices. From £70 for 3 cheapy ones, to more than that just for a single. I've already got roof bars for my car so only the bike mounts thats needed. It's quite likely that they'll only get used once, I'm hopefully selling my estate at the end of the summer to buy a van to convert to a camper over winter, but may end up getting roof bars for the wifes Jazz so would be handy for putting my boys bike on occasionally.

Found these, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291743119820?hash=item4... anyone used similar? We're only going about an hour from home, and probably only 40 mins of that is motorway, so a steady 60 will be fine, no need for autobahn capable ones.

I've never used roof mounts before, so any advice would be appreciated.

The car is a 2010 Accord Tourer, and I'm not sure if a normal rear bike rack would work because of the built in spoiler, and it would have to sit quite high up to clear the reg plate, but if anyone has used one on an Accord I'd be interested to know, at least that would be more likely to be used on another car.

PS, ironically I've got a towbar mounted bike rack, but no towbar fitted to the car. The towbar is in the garage, bought it 5 or so years ago when I was going to buy a motorbike trailer but ended up using my dads van to transport the motorbike, and really don't want to chop the rear bumper to fit it a couple of weeks before I sell the car,

Cheers

Gareth

[defblade]

Where are you in south Wales? I'm near Crosshands and I've got 3 bike carriers you'd be welcome to borrow; they fit the t-bolt slots on aero bars.

If you're going to buy the cheapies linked (which I'm sure will do the one trip fine), I'd be looking to buy some cargo straps as well - one to hold each wheel into the valley on the rack, and maybe one to tie over the downtube and under the tightening bolt to keep the bike down into that clamp.

Or there are plenty of used ones on ebay/gumtree eg
https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycle-accessories/cycl...
https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycle-accessories/thul...

or mix and match (2 on each ad) if you're further east:
https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycle-accessories/2-x-...
plus
https://www.gumtree.com/p/bicycle-accessories/car-...

[gazzarose]

Thank you very much for you kind offer. I'm in Bridgend so by the time I drive to you and back I'd buy a cheapy now, plus I'd be terrified of damaging something.

I'll keep an eye out the next week or so for some used ones near me, or I'll get some cheapy ones. There's bound to be various times I'd like to take the bikes somewhere without taking the future camper, so I think I'll get a roof rack for the jazz. Plus you made me remember I've got a bag of cargo straps and ratchet straps I've been scurrying away from delivery crates in work, they can finally earn their keep after taking up space under my bench in work.

Thanks again.

[Evanivitch]

I can only recommend Thule personally. If you look on marketplace you can usually find pairs being sold for £50ish, there's a few around South Wales to consider. If you're using aero bars then T bars fixings can cost a bit to buy.

[Craikeybaby]

I would go used Thule, you'll be able to sell it on for what you paid for it.