bfuser198374019

Go with the Whispbar! Great quality, ultra quiet, although its a bit pricey! Custom installed one on my daily driver (Cadillac CTS), Thule used to make a mount, they discontinued it, but the plasma cutter fixed that, made custom brackets to fit the factory mounting holes.

Fox Farm

I have been using Yakima since the middle 1980s, originally the gutter mount style which could support 100s and 100s of pounds. I like their versatility and durability.

dgasmd

I favor fork mounted racks, although I do not favor roof racks. They are hard to get to, kill mileage and aerodynamics on a car, and are cumbersome to use. I don't like hitch mounted racks either as none are fork mounted and they all make the bike stick out the sides of most medium to small size vehicles. The best rack in my mind is not even made yet, that I know of. It would be a trunk mounted rack simple to use and adjust/mount like the Saris Bones RS with an integrated locking mechanism, but it would have a platform to fork mount the bike. Rhode Gear used to make a rack back in the 90's that was the best of trunk mounted and roof mounted racks combined. I still have one and it is so simple to use and very safe. It still kills mileage in a car (drops my Prius highway mileage from 50 to 42 MPG) , but it so versatile that 20 years later it fits just fine even in a Prius.

I don't have recent pictures of it, but here are a few pictures from a couple of years back.




Now, if Thule could make something like this one Raceway platform but with a fork mounted platform, they would have me sold on it. It would make it less wide than my car!

v70cat

Ok so why did you go with AeroBlade instead of Whipbar?

v70cat

I have a station wagon and don't want the bikes hanging in the backs. I used a Saris rack in the back of the wagon and did not like it.

JohnJ80

I have that exact car (love it!)

I have a set of Thule cross bars with their towers that hold to the bars with a rubber coated steel strap. Super secure and work really well.

I've had several bike racks on it. What I like the best are the Yak Sprocket Rockets. They go on the bards really fast and they are as aero as you are going to get for a bike attachment. They are easy to mount, have a decent lock etc.. Before that I had the Yak Highroller and it was *ok*, but I had stripped the gearing inside that holds the bike wheel in place. There was no way to tell, but all of a sudden it would just a let go of the wheel if there as force applied to it. It's fair to say that the stripping was my fault, but the issue is there is no way to inspect the ratchet mechanism -that's a bad thing. I also thought it wobbled a bit. The Sprocket Rockets don't wobble. At all.

Otherwise, I'd put a hitch on it if the hitches for BMWs weren't so butt ugly and use my 1UpUSA rack. I also have the trays from the 1UpUSA rack that can be used as roof trays (very nice) but they are alot harder to mount to the car.

The problem with the Whisperbars from yakima is that when they mount to rails, they give up some of the load bar space for the connection to the rack part. That's a problem for me when I put my box on top or in getting bike attachments close to the side of the car. Otherwise, they look great.

the_wolf

cost (had a hookup for a slight discount on the thule)

To be honest, I was looking at the Whispbar (now Yakima) before I knew I had a friend that could get a discount.

I don't think you can go wrong with either.

v70cat

So both brands are the same I should just go with which ever is cheaper.

Beaker

I have to say that I winced when I saw a picture of a bike still attached to a roof rack *inside* a garage.

AngryScientist 

i just concluded a long weekend, putting over 1000 miles on my BMW with two bikes on the roof.

I have the BMW specific cross bars, and one BMW fork mount rack, one Rocky Mounts Euro Pitchfork. both are excellent. dropped my overall mpg my about 2 over the whole trip, mostly highway.

v70cat

Is the BMW cross bar aerodynamic in shape?

Are they easy to remove and install?

AngryScientist 

super easy to remove and install. and here's the thing: the beauty of the BMW aero bars is they have little "vortex breakers" underneath the bars. these break up the laminar wind flow over the bars and really quiet them down quite a bit. i hardly notice they're up there.

v70cat

It seems that a lot of oem bike stuff is just Thule repacked, do you know if this is the case with BMW?

the_wolf

I'm sure they are not quite exactly the same design'wise, but I would say that they are close in quality and usability. See which will fit your vehicle best or get whatever you can get the best deal on.

runningDoc

I have the thule 450 system and use the thule square bars. Mounted with two basic 517 fork mounted carriers.

My car already came with roof rails so it was easy to install.

I bought the whole setup at LL Bean in Maine. Its a little more expensive at LL Bean, but they have that lifetime no questions asked warranty.

The bikes with fenders fit fine.




of course a roadbike fits fine too:



There was a whistling sound over 45mph though on the square bars. I've read that even the Thule Aero bars and yakima round bars have whistling too.

I looked into buying a fairing, but didn't like how big and expensive they were. I saw that Yakima makes a simple airfoil that clips around the bar (it fits the thule square bar just fine). I bought two (less than $20 on amazon) and they actually work. One airfoil is only about 8" but I bet even just one will get rid of the whistling. (side note i read that you can just tie a rope around the front bar and that will distort the airflow enough to get rid of the whistling too for a economic solution).




as mentioned by patencad the fork mounts can "fail" where the locking mechanism may come loose when you hit potholes, but this is solved by buying the thule locks (you can actually find great deals on bulk lock sets [6-10 locks] using the same key on ebay or amazon). once locked down the fork mount will not come loose.

I really wanted to get a big mouth (whole bike carrier) but I don't trust it clamping down on a large diameter carbon down tube during sudden breaking.

I did end up buying a wheelbag from bonktown.



if you use the fork mounted system then you have to take into account the front wheel storage. the bag I bought was cheap ($19 from bonktown) and pretty much neccassary because sometimes wheels can be muddy and greasy. It fits two wheels fine (even with a disc brake rotor).

my car actually should get 40-ish MPG (up to 45mpg if hypermiling and driving slow and coasting) and with two bikes on the rack on highway trips I've still gotten near 40mpg (37-35mpg) driving normally (65-75mph). Its about a 3-4mpg hit.

If i'm not using the rack I take the whole thing off. i park on the street here in brooklyn so there's always a chance someone could just pry it off. it easily comes off in one big piece and is installed in less than 10min.

I was looking at hitch mounts and hatchback mounts, but with the station wagon I need access to the back, plus parallel parking in NYC is a b!tch with those rear mounted racks.

Over-all i'm happy with the thule system (and especially the yakima wind jammers). The whispbars are a superior solution because they are quiet and actually have locks built in so price-wise they are very competitive. I just don't want to have the whispbars pried off the roof by thieves - so constantly removing/installing would be a pain.

v70cat

Found this oem and cheaper

https://www.shopbmwusa.com/ProductDet...CenterId=16856

v70cat

Thinking about going all BMW since it cost less and is oem

https://www.shopbmwusa.com/ProductDet...CenterId=16856

JohnJ80

We'll one big problem is that the BMW rack grabs onto the frame. That's a big problem in my book. At some point it will scratch the bike.

J.

RickD

Rockymounts Euro Pitchfork trays on RhinoRacks very quiet and low profile

gg-madone

the most secure way to transport your bike is inside your car. the next best thing is roof rack fork mounted. the other types are for convenience. Thule Echelon is probably the best. I use Rocky Mounts. its low profile, its easy to mount and cheaper.

nhluhr

I tend to agree with you about the fork mounts. I use Yakima Vipers. I do worry about the stress it puts on the fork dropouts though when I see the bikes oscillating rapidly over bumps, etc. Also, I have the problem of what to do with the front wheels. I have some wheelforks on top of the car but then I have to use a cable lock with them.... and years ago before Yakima added tabs to the fork, I had a wheel fly off at 70mph on the freeway. Nowadays, if I see the shadow of my bikes/wheels, I can see those wheels fluttering int the wind up there because the yakima fork mount is relatively flexible. From the old fork I had (no tabs) to the new one, they have improved it by adding the lawyer tabs and the plastic thing that keeps the wheel from spinning but the fork itself is still flexible and roundbar mounts allow it to push back from wind so it contacts the roof of my car. I think my next rack will be aerobars of some kind.

Yeah, I could put the wheels inside the car but they take up a good amount of space and sometimes the car is loaded for a weeklong vacation.

I guess what I'm saying is there is definitely some appeal to the upright that let you keep the front wheel on. I've never used one though because them seem to allow the bike to sway a lot and I've seen them on the highway listing to one side like they're about to break.

v70cat

I think we a have basic difference of opinion Pcad and others say the fork type mounts loosen-up when you hit bumps and recommends the other style.

I don't have experience but like the idea of not having to remove the wheel.

Guys could provide your thoughts?

nhluhr

Well that's just wrong. I've been using fork mounts for 20 years and never had one loosen. I don't see how they could loosen. They are locked shut under high tension. Hell, I have a hard time closing the new style Yakima QR to get it locked because there is so much friction in the new design (probably designed specifically to prevent loosening since the entire skewer would have to turn for it to loosen against the QR head).

They've had that design for a long time now too, just with different style heads.

patentcad

Fork mounts are an accident waiting to happen. Too much stress on fork dropouts. It's not BUMPS you idiots (I never said that) it's CROSSWINDS. I have personally lost a bike off a fork mount carrier in a strong winter crosswind, and I've seen a $8K TT bike blown off a fork mount carrier by crosswinds before the Sandy Hook TT at the Jersey shore a few years ago.

Scratches on your bike caused by carriers that grab the down tube? Not on the ones I had. They rocked:



Thule criterium.

Trust me on this. Fork mounts don't fail often, but they do fail, and when that happens it sucks. The only thing that saved my Ibis was the rear strap (bike was hanging off the back of the car) but I needed a new fork and a wheel true, and my car got scratched. My LBS sees this once or twice a year, the Thule criterium carrier above is by far the best roof top attachment on the market. Get that. The rest of this is all white noise.

patentcad

The fork mounts themselves do not fail. They put so much stress on the fork dropouts that the fork dropouts fail, the bike then flies off the rack. That's the problem, not the rack itself failing, the rack putting too much strain on the fork dropout which can't handle the torque focused on it by crosswinds.