Mistakes To Avoid With Your Car Bike Rack

For individuals that enjoy riding bicycles, they may need an option that will allow them to easily transport their bikes using their vehicles. As a result, they may need to purchase a bike rack.

Ensure The Bike Rack Is Able To Fit Your Vehicle

As you are evaluating potential bike racks for your vehicle, you should take the time to ensure that the bike rack will be able to easily fit on your vehicle. Generally, these bike racks will be highly adjustable, but you will still need to know the measurements for the top of your car. Otherwise, you may fail to buy a bike rack that is suitable for your vehicle's size and shape.

Avoid Overloading Roof Bike Racks

It is important to respect the hauling capacity of your car's bike rack. Individuals will often make the mistake of overloading the bike rack, and this can have a number of damaging consequences. For example, this could lead to the bike rack suffering stress damage that may make it less capable of securely holding the bikes in place. Additionally, exceeding this weight limit could result in damage to the roof of the car as the weight may not be evenly distributed over the entire surface area of the roof. If you will need to haul more bikes than your car can safely support on a bike rack, a travel trailer may be a better option for your bike transportation needs. However, some vehicles may not be able to tow a trailer, and for these vehicles, a bike rack may be the only option available.

Avoid Leaving The Bike Rack On The Vehicle When You Are Not Using It

Whenever you are not using the bike rack, consider removing it from the vehicle. Leaving the bike rack on when it is not needed can cause unnecessary drag on the vehicle that may reduce its fuel economy. Furthermore, this can increase the wear that the bike rack suffers, which may lead to you needing to replace it much sooner than you had anticipated. Luckily, modern bike racks are designed to be easy to place on as well as remove from the vehicle. This will allow you to easily complete this in a matter of minutes with minimal effort. When you are placing the bike rack back onto the vehicle, try to test the connections to verify that they are firmly holding the bike rack in place before you start to load bicycles onto it.

For more information, contact a company like FTM Land, Mobile and Marine Solutions