Bike racks

[soogs]

I hope to be purchasing a Golf in the near future and I have a question regarding transporting bikes. Has anyone any experience with carrying bikes, either with roof racks, behind the car or can the boot accommodate two bikes with front wheels off and seat folded? I am concern having bikes on roof racks will adversely affect fuel consumption. I understand tow bars are not available with the Mk 7 yet.

Any comments will be appreciated.

[Gumpf]

I know for the Polo I can fit my dual suspension MTB and my road bike with both wheels of in the back if needed, though I never would at risk of damage during transit. I'm guessing that you probably wouldn't be able to keep the rear wheels on if you put them inside the car. Perhaps when they bring the wagon version out that would do it but I wouldn't be holding my breath.

I use Thule roof mounted racks. Fork mount (front wheel off) for the road bike and frame mount for the MTB as its an AL frame. There's always going to be some effect to fuel consumption but its not a great deal. I'll avg. 5.8 without anything on the roof and 6.7 with roof bars and MTB. Its a bit more when I have two bikes on the roof but I can't remember what that is as its been a while since thats happened.

[DV52]

I hope to be purchasing a Golf in the near future and I have a question regarding transporting bikes. Has anyone any experience with carrying bikes, either with roof racks, behind the car or can the boot accommodate two bikes with front wheels off and seat folded? I am concern having bikes on roof racks will adversely affect fuel consumption. I understand tow bars are not available with the Mk 7 yet.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Soogs: This is how I carry my bike on my MkVII Golf. I have adapted a "Frontloader" bike rack (which is made by Yakima USA, albeit I bought the unit locally in Melbourne) to fit onto the tow bar on my Golf. The Frontloader was originally intended to be installed on the crossbars of a roof rack.

The reason why I chose a Frontloader was because I didn't want any part of the bike frame to be used in holding the bike whilst being transported. My mountain bike has a full carbon frame, hence my aversion to bike racks that hold onto the bike frame. The frontloader uses the fork-like mechanism that can be seen on the RHS of the picture to hold the bike by the front wheel (the red knob on the lower right of the pic screws these forks together, which tighten onto the front wheel). There is a strap that holds the back wheel (which hopefully you can see on the LHS of the picture).

My second aversion was for bikes that are mounted on the roof of a car. I have friends that have smashed their bikes as they enter (or leave) their sheds because they have forgotten that their bikes are attached to the roof bars. Yes, I can hear you thinking "what a silly thing to do!", but I'm sympathetic to the possibility that I could do the same (in an unthinking moment).

Instead of mounting the Frontloader onto roof racks, I welded-up a rectangular frame from tubular steel. I then bolted the rectangular frame onto the hitch mechanism from an old Thule bike rack that I no longer used.

You can see my bike rack number plate on the lower part of the pic. I made this from a small piece of perspex material and I wired-up a set of LED lights for the stop and clearance light functions.

I agree that my approach is perhaps not your normal solution, but the modifications work well. I'm not suggesting that you do the same as it involves a fair bit of work. Just consider this post as a thought prompt!

[Gumpf]

There are some specific tow bar mounted options as well that are similar to how DV52 has his bikes mounted.
I also fully agree that you should avoid where possible using a frame holding bike rack for a carbon bike. My road bike will never be used on the one I have for the AL framed MTB.
A quick google search of tow bar mounted bike racks should come up with a number of options.