Roof mount Bike racks

Anyone using a roof mount bike rack for 4 bikes? I'm looking for something that I can remove during the off season. I'm driving a crew cab F250.. I know I've seen someone with these, just can't seem to find them now... Any advice is appreciated.

Doug

I have a Yakima rack system on my 2005 F-250 Supercab and carry 4 bikes. I am using the Q-Towers with the BOA bike mounts. I have been using this setup for almost 8 years with no problems. I have had this rack on three different trucks. It is a 2 minute operation to take the rack off the truck or put it on by one person. I will say it can be cumbersome to load bikes on top of these trucks though, especially if they are heavier bikes. Check out www.yakima.com .

I'll echo Rick A's setup. We used the Yakima system on my last truck and it worked great. I would imagine that the Thule system would work just as well.

John

Thanks Guys, Thats the only issue I'm thinking of is gracefully getting them down off the roof..my kids bikes seem to be built better than our old ones....or maybe I'm just getting old..

Doug

Believe me, I have done it enough times, and still nothing gracefull about it. But once you have it figured out, it is not too bad.One thing I did have to address with the Yackima Q Towers was the weather stripping and the Q Clips. The Q clips did not work well with the weather stripping on the inside of the door frame. It took some trimming to get the clips to install properly. If you decide to go that route, let me know and I can send you some pictures og how I trimmed it to get it to fit right. Once I trimmed the weather stripping, the clips grabbed hold and are rock solid, and no issues with leaking or wind instrusion in the cab.

We are using a rear bumper mount bike rack on our cat. So far it has worked great, loading and unloading the bikes is much easier then on a roof mount and the receiver hitch was a breeze to mount. We got the receiver that bolted to the rear bumper with a U-bolt and it is very steady when the bikes are mounted on it. I travel with very high end triathlon bikes and feel comfortable with them on the rear fo the trailer.

Shannon O'Glee

Shannon. You'll want to keep a close eye on this if you didn't have any reinforcement done to the bumper. I started with the same set up on my last 5ver. I only had it on about a year when headed on I-95 through Connecticut someone flagged me down to tell me I was losing my bikes. I started with three. One was already gone and the second one was dragging on the ground. The bumpers are real thin. The welds were o.k. but the bouncing actually peeled the bumper apart. I replaced that bumper with an 1/8" wall tube steel and some additional reinforcement and never had any problems. We just got our cat and I immediately took it to a local weld shop and had a custom hitch receiver installed for $ 375.00. I use a Swagman receiver bike rack. If you look on other forums you will see lots of people that had the bumpers fall off. Just a bit of advice from someone who learned the hard way.

KH

Someone here built a modified cargo carrier that had room for the cooler, generator, and bikes. There were even pictures to show off the craftsmanship! Maybe they could chime in and re-share what they did.

TC

I've seen these on the Keystone Cougars and some Montanas. The rack actually slides in if you are not using it. I think it's a pretty neat idea. I like the way my set up works because when camping we'll often take the bikes somewhere to catch a bike trail. I just pull the bike rack out of the 5th wheel hitch and slide it in the truck hitch.

Kh

I just bought a 4 bike carrier for a 2" receiver for $100 at Walmart. It seems to be built solid. I don't think the roof mount rack would be fun to load. It's hard enough to get all the bike aligned on a rack that is at chest level.

That sounds like a good deal.. most of them are upward of $300 Although Now I have my boat back there most of the time, ( sad song huh...) Maybe one those adapters that give you 2- 2" receivers, right now I'm using the boat as the carrier, it looks a little Jed Clampet-ish
but no one said it was going to be pretty

Throw the bikes in the boat,,,,

I had the bumper welds break on our previous TT because of the bike rack (& bikes), so we had a frame mounted receiver built for our WC.

IgowhereImtowed wrote:That sounds like a good deal.. most of them are upward of $300 Although Now I have my boat back there most of the time, ( sad song huh...) Maybe one those adapters that give you 2- 2" receivers, right now I'm using the boat as the carrier, it looks a little Jed Clampet-ish
but no one said it was going to be pretty

Usually if we take the watercraft, the bikes stay home and visa versa. So the receiver splitter isn't necessary. I'd like to build a cargo platform that can double as a jetski carrier. The jetski weighs in at 350#. I'd have to figure out a way to incorporate some floatation tires. Usually I just double tow, but there are times you don't want to mess with it.

A year or so ago we were thinking we'd like to pull a small trailer behind our fifth wheel, so we could carry a golf cart when we go to Disney World. The cost was rather prohibitive and we decided we could rent a cart for many vacations before we spent as much as we would for a trailer and cart.

This is what we thought we'd like to have:
http://www.discount-trailers.com/smart-trailer.htm

They ARE built very light indeed and the welds are really not very impressive. They just kinda cover up the seam of the steel up top and look pretty, they didn't penetrate very much at all.

As soon as we bought our 2007 QBSS I cut the back bumper off and extended it out almost 2 feet so that I could fit a 5500 watt Onan on half of it and the other half has a expanded metal tray for a cooler or bikes or whatever you need there.

I'm just chimeing in on this thread because I was so surprised at how light of guage the steel was to cut and I don't think I would trust putting too much weight on the bumper itself. I welded mine back on to make it look "factory" but the braces and the welds are much heavier now and thats whats holding up the 200 lb. generator.

Doug

Doug,
Sounds pretty neat . Post some pics when you can. Would like to see it.