BIKE RACKS AND CARRIERS FOR CARS MEGATHREAD - all questions asked and answered here

Reubs

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Ok, so someone cant tell a black WRX from a black Forrester! :p

It belongs to a friend of mine and he paid a shittonne of cash to get it shipped here from North Van. $700 approx all in (rack + shipping) which I personally think is too much money for a rack that still has faults (doesn't fit tapered headtubes easily, doesnt fit rockshox totems, doesnt fit road bikes or bmx bikes and worst of all is not that easy to load).

A better alternative is a Rat Rack. Fits 20" all the way up to 29er and 700c. Still a canadian product but If you are willing to pay, Richard will ship to you. http://ratracks.com/ They load from the back instead of the side a-la N.S. racks and even short people can do it easily (common problem with the N.S. -I've used both and the rat rack wins hands down)
 

retroenduro

Likes Dirt
Thats even better!

There are heaps of decent well thought out large capacity racks coming out of Canadia right now. Would be good if a local developed (cough GRIP/GCouyant are you listening?) one so we didnt have to spend a fortune on shipping....

PS im in the market for one right now. needs to take 6 bikes ;)
 

Chrispy

Likes Bikes
the state is broke and will book and charge you $. get the proper plate, a trailer light fitting and a trailer light board from super crap auto
 

flamin'trek

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Saw a bike rack yesterday, had a home made plate on it. I thought maybe they hadn't had time to order one from the RTA and were at least having a go, until I noticed the rack plate didn't match the car. That's just asking for trouble, a lot of cops would probably let it go with a home made job unless they were having a slow day but if they noticed the different plates there'd be trouble.

I've got 2 bike knack plates now, one for each car.
 

MTB Wanabe

Likes Dirt
What we used to do with our dirt bike no plates was to scan the plate and then reprint it. The paper copy was then attached and sealed onto a piece of aluminium. We did this as we were sick of loosing the number plates or damaging them out in the bush and having to fork out the $$$ to replace it.
 

retroenduro

Likes Dirt
Ok, so someone cant tell a black WRX from a black Forrester! :p

It belongs to a friend of mine and he paid a shittonne of cash to get it shipped here from North Van. $700 approx all in (rack + shipping) which I personally think is too much money for a rack that still has faults (doesn't fit tapered headtubes easily, doesnt fit rockshox totems, doesnt fit road bikes or bmx bikes and worst of all is not that easy to load).

A better alternative is a Rat Rack. Fits 20" all the way up to 29er and 700c. Still a canadian product but If you are willing to pay, Richard will ship to you. http://ratracks.com/ They load from the back instead of the side a-la N.S. racks and even short people can do it easily (common problem with the N.S. -I've used both and the rat rack wins hands down)
Just had an email back from Richard...he does not ship overseas....too much red tape apparently
 

Grip

Yeah, yeah... blah, blah.
I can tell you... skwiz05 now has one of these... so he may be interested in selling his old rack (if he still has it). And you can even try winning one of these (which has to be easier than making one). CLICK HERE to see how.
 

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gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
Hey guys i recently bought a giant faith 1. I drive a short wheel base nissan patrol and have to take the wheels off to get the bike in the back (no rear seats). Only thing is this is becoming a PITA. Anyone made racks for the inside/outside of their 4x4's to suit downhill bikes or seen racks to suit a 4wd as i dont really wanna put the bikes on the roof cause my car is lifted 6 inches with 35 inch tyres so getting to the roof is also a PITA.
Mudmav, that is exactly what we do - build the strongest and most versatile bicycle carriers to travel with your bicycles wherever you want. Moreover, the carrier lowers so that you have free and easy access to the back of the car and you can use the carrier as a step to get easy access to the roof rack if you have one.

Whilst yours is probably a shorty GQ, here's a GU with a TJM rear bar and carrier to give you an idea of the Extreme Duty carrier to suit your vehicle.





Here's a picture of some Giant goodness on a smaller version of the carrier on the back of the Patrol above.



A couple of other stellar features of this carrier is the huge 40 degree departure angle




and the fact that this carrier solves the problem with just about every other bicycle carrier that forces you to move one bicycle to the left and the other to the right in order to make them fit. With the Extreme Duty carrier you can have the bicycles configured exactly side by side with zero side overhang. This means that you will be able to wheel down tight tracks and those with an embankment to one side without smashing a bicycle wheel or worse.




It just doesn't get any better wheeling with your bicycles safe and always at the ready. Happy to help you get out and travel wherever you want with the bikes on board and never have to regret bringing them along.

This carrier has been a life changer for us because we are into Adventure cycling in some of the most remote and rugged places in Australia. Just sensational to be out there.

 

eastie

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Grip and ISI are two of the best racks out there for proper offroad use, and after a bit of consideration I ended up with an ISI for my shorty (pics of a mitsu shorty on George's site). George was great to deal with when it came to sorting out the right setup to clear the spare wheel, remain compact to also use on our other vehicle (subaru forester) and allow flexibility of opening the rear door with everything still hooked up. Space is a premium in a shorty (and the forester), and being able to get to stuff in the back with bikes hooked up makes life easier. My lab also love being able to jump in the back once more, which was the sealer.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
4x4 I'd go isi
Grip are also brilliant, I have one now.
I think grip out runs isi in the word of mouth but looking at the racks they are highly impressive and I wouldn't be surprised if they have or do take the lead over grip in the coming years.
As a 4x4 you really want to keep clearance so I'd go the isi.
 

gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
George was great to deal with when it came to sorting out the right setup to clear the spare wheel, remain compact to also use on our other vehicle (subaru forester) and allow flexibility of opening the rear door with everything still hooked up.
Great to hear from you Mark. I hope that you're looking after that drop dead gorgeous Santacruz of yours. Hey, we're about to announce our new Fat Finger frame support cradles and you're welcome to pop over some time and I'll give you lengths of the new rubber profile that we have developed and tooled for.



The brand new Fat Finger frame support cradle is an evolutionary design up from our Double Padded cradles. Manufactured with solid steel rod to add mass at the frame contact point and this eliminates high frequency vibrations when driving at speed over corrugated roads (or when a rear wheel is out of balance). The rubber is a new product that we designed and tooled for. Super wide contact area with just about zero pressure upon the frame. Sensational on thin wall hydroformed and carbon fibre frames. I'm so very pleased with this rubber profile because it solves all the pressure hassles and frame scuff issues of off the shelf round extrusions that are so common in the market place. It's fat, flexy, tough and oh so gentle. Furthermore it's a 100% cover and the post support end is notched so that it extends over the entire length of the frame cradle and over the support sleeve - you won't mark the frame if you accidentally knock the bike as you're lowering the frame cradle. Along with the corner clamp for rock solid clamping, you just don't get better than this.
 

gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
4x4 I'd go isi
Grip are also brilliant, I have one now.
I think grip out runs isi in the word of mouth but looking at the racks they are highly impressive and I wouldn't be surprised if they have or do take the lead over grip in the coming years.
As a 4x4 you really want to keep clearance so I'd go the isi.
Look, thank you drifty but that's not really a fair comparison mate. The two businesses operate at different parts of the bicycle carrier marketplace.
 

driftking

Wheel size expert
Look, thank you drifty but that's not really a fair comparison mate. The two businesses operate at different parts of the bicycle carrier marketplace.
Yeah for sure I should have noted that, what I was getting at was that people with 4x4 as still been reccomended grip probably due to the big word of mouth over the years, which while is a quality rack, for a 4x4 you guys clearly are the goto for certain cars, as more people Get onto isi you guys will be the goto suggestion for those certain vehicles.
 
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gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
as more people Get onto isi you guys will be the goto suggestion for those certain vehicles.
Yeah it's a tough gig some times. On another thread we're copping a bit of grief for not advertising that our carriers are perfect on passenger vehicles as well as 4WDs. Oh well, we do our best. I reckon that we sell more compact Extreme Duty carriers for small passenger vehicles than we do for 4WDs!

Then again, if we nail the toughest applications for bicycle carriers and give them 100kg of load capacity, then installing the carrier on a passenger vehicle is a breeze. If anything, they add a bit of "tough" to the car and really do look sensational.







 

gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
I was reminded of an important safety feature designed into our carriers this weekend because of an unfortunate mishap I came across. This poor fellow backed into a post hidden in the grass and whilst it was only a light nudge, it damaged his bicycle and the carrier became a throw away job.

The thought and engineering that has gone into features that protect the bicycles and replaceable components is really quite important in order to keep the adventurer with our bicycle carrier on his journey with minimum disruption should the nasty happen - we are human after all but that shouldn't mean that we have to suffer for it.

On our bicycle carriers, the horizontal wheel support beams are a separate and replaceable item. Standard duragal square tube that you can find in every farm shed, steel shop and engineering shed in the country.



If you give the carrier a smack and bend a tube, then it's dead easy to replace and you don't have to throw the carrier away. Moreover, a replacement can be found just about anywhere.

The best bit though is that the tube and sleeve design protects the bicycles by encouraging the tubes to move the bicycles up and back - away from the back of the car and away from the obstacle that you have inadvertently backed into. You can see a clue how this is done with the cut profile of the end of the sleeve tube that the horizontal wheel support beam slips into. Instead of a straight cut, each end of the sleeve has a small protrusion in the centre to encourage the tube to bend about that pivot point. The upper corner is inboard relative to the lower corner and this encourages the horizontal beam to bend up as it moves back - thus moving that side of the bicycle up and away from the obstacle.

The same goes for the vertical frame support post sleeve though in this case, it is encouraged to move the bicycle back away from the obstacle and to stop the bicycle from being crushed to the back of the car.

It's a very clever yet simple feature that is highly effective - and hopefully never have to be put into use. But if you're into 4WDing with the bicycles on the back of one of our carriers, it's one less thing you need to stress over and you can pay more attention to the track conditions ahead.

Again though, this feature isn't of value just to the 4WDer. In fact anyone who selects reverse in the car runs the risk of needing it!
 

gcouyant

Farkin Advertiser
As people are returning from their holidays, we are beginning to receive many photos of their travels - which is really exciting for us all here because we get to find out about some of the sensational places visited. Plenty of inspiration for planning the next trip too.

Here are a couple:













And these of a drop dead gorgeous Porsche Cayenne who picked up a carrier just the other day after seeing this thread - so thanks .





The neat thing is that because these bicycle carriers are the strongest, most gentle and absolutely zero hassle to travel with, people are encouraged to travel with their bicycles and make them part of the journey. What is even better is that after the first trip away you can't wait for the next one!
 
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