If you are going to move your favorite bicycle then you should pack it with care. Here we prepared for you some tips which will make your process of your bike moving easier.
Situations when it is necessary to transport a bicycle on the car
1. You don’t want to pedal in a dense stream of cars.
2. If the only road to the place is the highway, because it is forbidden to go by bicycle on it.
3. If you decide to go for a drive after work, but do not have time to go home at all.
4. If you need to get cross-country training on the track, which is located far from the city.
5. If you want to conduct road training outside the city in the vicinity of the forest, villages and a small stream of traffic.
6. If you only ride down, then to get to the place of destination is hard enough.
7. You decided to go for a ride with the whole family.
8. When going to competitions or other events.
There is a plenty of variants to transport a bicycle on the car. Let’s start with the most budgetary one.
Carriage inside the car
If you have a minivan transportation of you bike can be very comfortable. If you fold rear row of seats, your bike will fit without problems, it does not even have to be dismantled, except that the saddle must be lowered. If you don’t have any desire to fold saddle or the some passengers travel with you, then the bicycle will also fit inside the truck with the front wheel removed.If you have a sedan, a hatchback, or a compact crossover and you do not want to fold the seats, then you have to put a bicycle in the backseat. You do not have to worry, because if you take off the front wheel, theneven a large growth a bicycle will fit behind. Put it on its back wheelfrom the rear door behind the driver. The rear wheel must be put on the rug behind the passenger seat.Rotate the bicycle slightly diagonally to fit the steering wheel – both doors will close. This method is good enough because the chain will not touch the seat. Don’t forget to put some unnecessary blanket or cover to avoid messing up and damaging the upholstery. The bike will fit easily the rear row directly to the floor or to the seats, if you remove both wheels. In this case, you can drive a few bicycles. There are some type of cars which allow you to transport your bicycle in the trunk.
Significant disadvantages of such transportation are:
1. The need to assemble and disassemble the bicycle every time, which can lead to the damaging of brakes.
2. The need to put spacers between the pads, if you have a disk hydraulic brakes.
3. The possibility of contamination or damage the upholstery.
4. Impossibility to take passengers to the back seat.
Carriage at the back of the car
Owners of pickup truckscan afford a rare, but beautiful way of transportation of bikes. But in other cases, you will need a special device to fasten the bike, which will make you spend some money. But the installation of a bicycle on such a device does not take much time and you can take a few bicycles with you and go riding with a group of several people. If there are several bicycles, find the old cameras from the cars, pump them up a little and put them between bicycles. Fix the frame of the bike with a belt. Thus, you will get a solid construction which will save all parts of the bike from damaging. However, the ways of fastening on the back side are also different. One of the methods is fastening on the tow bar. The main disadvantage of it is that not everyone has a tow bar. And still, if your car isn’t a sedan, it will be impossible to open the fifth door. There is still an option for such vehicles. For those who did not get a tow bar, it’s recommended to use the following option. Fastening on a back cover of a trunk would be ideal for crossovers, station wagons and hatchbacks. However, a serious inconvenience is the difficulty or impossibility of opening the boot lid until the moment you put out the bikes. Some manufacturers have built-in attachments in their cars, which are pushed out of its rear for bikes.
Common disadvantages of such fasteners
1. Significant increase in fuel consumption due to increased air resistance.
2. You need to be careful in driving a car, because if the bikes have a long base, they will increase the lateral dimensions, let alone the fact that they occupy enough space on the back.
3. Overlapping the rear light signals, as well as numbers. However, many manufacturers of such fastenings take care of this and offer a remote shelf with turn signals and stop signals and the possibility of setting the number.
4. In wet weather, bicycles will be completely covered with a layer of dirt.
5. The risk of not taking the bikes to their destination, because you can’t be sure that the inattentive driver is not going behind you.
Carriage on the roof of the car
This is the most common and safe transportation option. On the roof you can transport a bicycle even on the grandfather’s trunk. If you put a mattress, the losses from transportation will be minimal. It is more reliable, of course, to have special trunks for fixing a bicycle. They must be installed on pre-attached crossbars. The essence of the trunks is simple: 2 places for installation and fastening of wheels and bracket, which captures and holds the lower tube of the frame. There is a variant of fastening to the roof without a front wheel, which should give the rigidity of the structure. You can attach a bicycle up wheels. When transporting a bicycle on the roof, remember that your bicycle is protected from inattentive drivers, only now you shouldn’t forget that the dimensions of the car increased in height. Remember this, especially if you go into the garage or car wash.