I'll third the Draftmaster; below is a pic from a trip to Crater Lake last year. 'Went on a long road trip w/ a couple friends and the mileage on the van didn't take a hit. The Draftmaster works best if you have a vehicle w/ the aerodynamics of a barn...

Well, all of those solutions work well, but if you already have roof bars and baulk at paying $300 for a few bits of pressed steel and aluminum it's very easy to make your own wooden rack.

Just buy an axle clamp, screw it to a length of wood and use some axle U-bolts to secure the wood to the roof bars. Mine cost £30 in parts, took 4 or so hours to design, build and paint and is still working nicely after 4 years. Milage suffers though, and if you drive at 100mph+ with 2 single bikes plus a tandem on top then the tank drains quickly.

Yes you have to lift the bike onto the car, but with practice this is easy as long as you focus on getting the rear wheel safely on the rack, then focus on dropping the forks into the clamp.

I just picked up a rear model that is really easy. It goes into the hitch on my Tacoma and carries the tandem like a standard hitch rack. It was $270 from rockymounts, called the tandem tailpipe. I have seen the roof racks from Thule and ATOC, but am leery about getting the tandem on top. My wife can even use this easily.

Yakima Sidewinder user here.

I use the ATOC loaded on my roof. I prefer the ATOC because the rear wheel sits in a tray, where as the Sidewinder supports the boom tube. If you transport the bike a lot, the paint and graphics are bound to get boogered up by the boom tube and straps as happened with my Burley Rivazza.

I chose the Yakima for that exact reason, a tray doesn't exactly give me the most confidence. I would rather have a slightly scuffed boom than have my tandem rip my rack off. Plus a tray that long wouldn't allow me to lift my hatch. Though is it the atoc that has the removable extension?

I have my rack with the rear wheel facing forward. I've traveled thousands of miles with my tandems with nary a problem. See below.


Fiorelli on the Roof (Not Fiddler) by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

I should also say that I work at a bike shop so I got a deal on it.

That goes a long way, for sure. I have to say that were it not for the kinds of distances I have traveled using a rack with a boom tube support, I doubt it would have damaged the paint and graphics. The ultimate solution for me is getting a van of some sort, but I'm not in a hurry to do that, since I'm planning to pay off my mortgage before I spend money on getting another car. Even then it's going to be something cheap and used, just like me.

More money for bikes

Another vote for the Yakima Sidewinder. Very secure rack. Quick & easy to load, but it really is a two-person job (no matter what Yakima says). If you also have Yakima's rack towers, they have their SKS (single key system) available. And along with watching drive-through windows, garages, etc., be aware that you need some separation with a vehicle parked on the same side as the Sidewinder. Some factory roof racks are incompatible with the Sidewinder (car shopping back in '05, and the Saturn's crossbars were the wrong size/shape). FWIW, I've never had an issue with marring of the Speedster's bottom tube.

We always try to get the bike inside the vehicle when we have a remote ride start.

For around town, I use the hitch-mount Performance Flatbed. To make it work with the tandem I ordered the Sport Rider Long Wheel Base Kit from Hollywood Racks. I like the flatbed racks because they are very easy to load and unload the bike(s). They also hold the bike securely without any chance of paint becoming marred from rubbing.

Rocky Mount rack works well, and can be mounted on factory rails.

This seems like an interesting combination for a wider vehicle. How do you generally like this setup? You mentioned for around town, would you use it for longer trips with the tandem? Can you post some pictures with tandem in setup?

I like it when going to rides in town because it is so easy to get the bike on and off the vehicle. When we go on long trips, we break the bike down and travel with it in S&S cases. We still take the rack with us so that we have an easy way to transport the bike at our destination.

For shorter trips, we just break the bike down into two pieces using the front S&S couplers and carry it in the back of my wife's crossover SUV. A couple of minutes on each end and we are ready to go.

I don't like travelling long distances with the bike outside the vehicle in the elements. To much opportunity for bad things to happen.