Scarlett has no trim on the roof where you can attach a bike rack. She also doesn’t have the ability to add a trailer hitch for a hitch rack. The only viable option is a SeaSucker Rack, which attaches purely with large suction cups.
Can you say “nervous?” We had a bike fall out of our previous Yakima rack while going 65 mph down I-5. It didn’t fall off the roof (thankfully), but you don’t forget that sort of thing. I watched a bunch of videos. Race cars with bikes on top running a slalom at 100 mph or something ridiculous like that. The bikes appeared to be rock solid. But I still had visions of two metal bikes skidding down Scarlett’s very expensive all-glass roof and what that would cost to fix.
But I had no options so I bought a SeaSucker Mini Bomber, which can hold two bikes. It came Thursday and we planned a bike ride for today.
Friday night was reserved for assembly, installation and dry run for mounting the bikes. By the end of the evening, I was even more nervous and asking myself “what did I just do? Did I throw away $500?”
First, the front fork extenders that keep you from needing to take off the front tire didn’t fit. $90 of the $500. Then the handlebars, when mounted, bumped each other and I couldn’t cinch down the bikes. Plus it was awkward and flat out scary putting a bike with a metal front fork on top of a car with an all-glass roof. Although removing the front tires was much less of a problem than I originally anticipated.
There is also an alignment on the rack you can do to avoid the handlebar issue; although it was easier for me to simply loosen and twist Brenda’s handlebar.
This morning I backed the car out of the garage and mounted the bikes. They fit really snug, the front wheels easily fit in the rear trunk along with our gear and helmets in the frunk.
We went to the Row River Trail and rode from Mosby Creek to Bake Stewart Park, about 8.5 miles each way. One of our favorite rides, which will be shut partially down for repairs starting Monday. We came in under the wire.
Can I say the MiniBomber performed flawlessly? I kept asking Brenda on the drive down to look up and check how they were doing. I actually think they ride more solidly than our previous Yakima rack. On our ride, because the racks don’t lock, I removed them and stowed them in the trunk. This has the additional benefit of we don’t have to clutter up the car with a bike rack except when we are needing one.
When we returned from our ride (which was beautiful, by the way. See our Facebook pages), I timed the process of getting the rack out, reinstalling, removing the front wheels, mounting the bikes, loading the car and being on our way.
Fifteen minutes.
Total.
Plus, we can be pre-cooling the car while we are doing this, so it’s not an oven when we are ready to go.
I’m sold on the rack. I thought about titling this post “This Rack Sucks” or something like that, but most of the reviews I saw already used that perspective.
I’ll just say it is a wonderful rack. We can store the entire thing in the frunk so it’s ready at any time. And SeaSucker is letting me send back the front fork extenders for a full refund.