CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Commuting

Bike carrier for car

(7 posts)
  • Started 10 years ago by rosscbrown
  • Latest reply from Stickman

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  1. rosscbrown
    Member

    So I now have a car. And a bicycle.

    After my bus incident last year I've struggled to get back into cycling but I'd like to drive out to *somewhere* quiet and/or interesting and cycle there rather than playing with traffic in the city centre.

    How do I go about buying a bike rack/carrying system for the car? I'll be honest, all this car stuff is pretty new to me!

    I'd like something compact as I don't have much space to keep a larger 'thing' either in my small car on in my tiny flat. Any recommendations? One bike min, 2 bike max.

    Also, where might one find some good (not too taxing or busy) cycling that one can drive to?

    Posted 10 years ago #

  2. tk
    Member

    Do you have a tow ball or a roof rack for the car? You have three options - tow ball carriers, roof carriers and the sort that strap on round the boot. The better ones support under the wheels rather than under the top tube so the bikes don't swing around and bash the car but they are only available in the tow bar and roof rack type

    Posted 10 years ago #

  3. Instography
    Member

    If you don't have much space for storage, I'd go for a roof mounted rack and just leave it on the car.

    Cycling you can drive to? Start with the canal. Drive to Fife and cycle along the paths / quiet roads. Check out Sustrans' website.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  4. gembo
    Member

    Drive far enough into east Lothian e.g outskirts of North Berwick and you find country roads with no traffic, especially say early on Sunday morning. Same thing works for west Lothian beyond Livingston say parking at belsquarry back road to Carnwath with choice of three similar routes not much by way of hills. Stop at apple pie bakery, take one of the other three roads back, they all kind of merge at auchengray.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  5. geordiefatbloke
    Member

    I second "Instography", if you've got a roof-mounted rack permanently available you'll be much more likely to just pop the bike on and go off for a ride rather than faffing around setting up another rig. I recently used http://www.roofbox.co.uk/ for just this exact thing and found them very useful, they appear to do some reasonable package deals (e.g. bars and carrier all in) and have a tool where you can enter make and model of car and they will tell you what fits. My bike has quite a fat down tube so I went for a thule proride 591 which I find much easier to use than the freeride 532 I used to have. Obviously there are various other brands/websites available, just sharing my experience of this one :)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  6. Cyclingmollie
    Member

    I have a Rhode Gear Shuttle on Gumtree. It folds flat for storage and is easier to fit to a car than a roof carrier. We don't need it as we have sold the car. Gumtree ad.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  7. Stickman
    Member

    I've got one of the carriers that straps on the boot. To be honest I don't really like using it - I'm not confident that the bike is totally secure and it's a pain to put on each time.

    I'm thinking about roof bars, but they are pretty expensive (although not as expensive as losing a bike off the back!)

    Posted 10 years ago #

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