We have a medium Santana Arriva that we can fit inside our '96 Subaru wagon with the front wheel off and the head of an old single yakima fork mount put in as a way to keep the fork from digging into things. I also take the handle bars off the stem and take the captains seat post(and stoker bars) out, to make thing fit more easily. In our case we can keep both the front seats, fold down the two rear seats, and put the bike in upright such that the mounted fork sits on the back part of the armrest glove box, and the rear wheel on just closes inside our hatch. In this position, the weight of the bike could actually be on the front timing chain, so we place that right over the split in the folded down rear seats to allow the weight to bear on the fork and the rear wheel. I then use a strap to hold the bike upright tying it down to the solid hooks used to latch the rear seat when it is up. This might be tight with the XL, but I bet you can do it. Since the bike rides upright, it really takes up very little of the rear cargo space, and the space it does take is right down the middle. This makes it very easy to both pack and access all your other stuff. You do need to be careful about not getting chain tattoos on your car or your stuff. I don't actually do this approach much, as usually I need the rear seats for my family. In that case we put either two tandems or a quad on the roof with yakima bars and towers, and the great (but sadly discontinued) Sportworks U2 tandem racks. I couple the two tandem racks to make a quad rack when needed. The Sportworks design was incredibly modular and flexible for unusual bikes.
Enjoy the new tandem!
DMT
Sanatana Arriva (S&S)
Cannondale Road Tandem
Santana Quad
Last edited by tie dye tandem; 07-26-10 at 02:22 PM.
Reason: I did not mean to hit return!