Anyone ever use something like the Seasucker bike racks/mounts? Curious as to how sturdy they are. There aren't a lot of good options out there for putting a bike on an SW20.
Anyone ever use something like the Seasucker bike racks/mounts? Curious as to how sturdy they are. There aren't a lot of good options out there for putting a bike on an SW20.
Picture for reference:
No experience with them, but if a guy can scale the Trump Tower with suction cups I don't see why you couldn't hold a 30 lb bike on your car with them.
If it were me I would be looking for somewhere other than glass or the least supported portion of the spoiler to stick the suction cups.
I've used sea-suckers on boats as a tie location (doesn't have cleats). They do degrade over time, probably be careful about how they are stored.
They do hold really well, but I'd be skeptical about a bike rack, at least long-term. A bike like that sees a lot of wind buffeting, vibration from the car, and has a fair amount of leverage on the mount.
I did some test fitting with my bike tonight, and was thinking of flipping the bike so that a pair of cups hold the handlebars to the engine cover, and a third holds the saddle to the decklid. Seems to me that would be more stable, but I don't know how bad that would be for the body panels.
I've seen guys regularly transporting really high end bikes with them at events but I've never used one myself. I haven't heard any horror stories through the cycling grapevine either, and that's usually a good sign.
I don't have any experience, but it seems like the bike could apply quite a bit of leverage to the sheet metal if it's not braced directly underneath the mount?
Thinking back, I used one of the strap-on racks on my Miata for a while, but it left some slight dimples on the trunk lid from the weight leverage. Going back even further, I don't know of a single carrier that contacted the body & didn't cause some kind of damage after multiple uses. Most of my cars have been beaters so I just didn't give a E36 M3.
petegossett wrote: Going back even further, I don't know of a single carrier that contacted the body & *didn't* cause some kind of damage after multiple uses.
...and that's why all my cars have a receiver hitch. For the bike rack. That's the only type that doesn't contact the sheetmetal.
What are the options for a the 1 1/4" receiver, even custom made? It wouldnt have to hold more than 100lbs and I would trust if far more than suction cups to hold a bike.
Imagine the potential worst outcome (bike flies off, damages car and bike, causes multicar pile up, etc. Now is that risk worth the reward (no trailer hitch? get to drive fun car to trails, etc) I haul my bike in the back of my F250, no worries there. Just set it in. Nice n secure, dry, covered, locked storage. Not as fun as taking the Mercedes to the trailhead, but a lot less effing around.
Not direct experience, but I did see a little aftermath of a minivan losing it's kayak on the highway. It was probably user error, but I wouldn't trust one for the distances and speeds I travel with the bikes up top. So, I would also recommend looking at hitch receiver options first.
I use roof racks on two of my cars, but one came with factory bolt on mount points (Saab) and the other has factory roof rails (Subaru). If that were not the case, I'd have had a hitch receiver mounted.
93gsxturbo wrote: What are the options for a the 1 1/4" receiver, even custom made? It wouldnt have to hold more than 100lbs and I would trust if far more than suction cups to hold a bike.
Definitely nothing off the shelf. The only direct-fit design I've seen for the SW20 is the Curt, which doesn't lend itself at all to hitch-type bike racks. The receiver points straight down:
I would not use suction cup bike rack on any of my cars or with any of my bikes. Is that the only car you have to carry your bike?
In reply to T.J.:
No, but it's the car I care least about.
A friend of mine uses them to transport his expensive bike, on his 370z. The ones he boight has some sort of guarantee to never fail. They work, really really well.
Will wrote:93gsxturbo wrote: What are the options for a the 1 1/4" receiver, even custom made? It wouldnt have to hold more than 100lbs and I would trust if far more than suction cups to hold a bike.Definitely nothing off the shelf. The only direct-fit design I've seen for the SW20 is the Curt, which doesn't lend itself at all to hitch-type bike racks. The receiver points straight down:
Where there's a will, there's a way.
Will wrote:93gsxturbo wrote: What are the options for a the 1 1/4" receiver, even custom made? It wouldnt have to hold more than 100lbs and I would trust if far more than suction cups to hold a bike.Definitely nothing off the shelf. The only direct-fit design I've seen for the SW20 is the Curt, which doesn't lend itself at all to hitch-type bike racks. The receiver points straight down:
You could also use a ball mount style bike rack with this hitch. Something like this.
Appreciate the suggestions.
But the trailer hitch plus ball mount bike rack combination would cost around $350. The trailer hitch plus adapter gets to $300 before I even consider the actual bike rack itself. That's more than I want to spend to ride my bike.
After looking around at various options for bike racks for this car and not seeing anything I really liked, I decided to buy one of the suction cup (actually, these have a built-in pump and create vacuum) mounts as a test. It stuck really, really well for quite a while, so I ordered another two.
Here's what I ended up with:
The two cups under the handlebars use these rubber straps. Seemed like a better idea than the velcro, but I'm not sure I trust them. I might go to Home Depot or something and see if I can find some sort of locking strap that's a little more secure. World's shortest tie-down straps, maybe.
I had initially planned to use the third cup under the saddle, mounted to the decklid. But there was no way to get it tight enough to the saddle, and I didn't like how much it moved side to side. So I moved it to the wing and mounted the tire to it.
Just sitting in the driveway I can give the bike a good shake and it's pretty stable. I'm not just going to rush right out and autoX with this thing in place, but I'll probably test it out on a short drive or two over the weekend and see if it seems sturdy enough for longer drives.
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