I recently bought an electric-assist bike for my wife + kid. It's awesome by the way -- now I can ride as fast as I want on my normal bike and my wife can keep up with no problem.
I'm going camping in Port Townsend this weekend and I want to bring bikes. (Opening Day for boaters is gonna make town a total CF and I don't want to drive from Fort Worden to PT & deal with parking issues).
My question: is strapping a ~70lb bike on a roof rack a stupid idea? I own a beefy Thule Tandem tray (http://www.amazon.com/Thule-Pivoting-Tandem-Carrier/dp/B00EOGKEO8). I'll take steps to minimize the weight of the e-bike (like removing the battery), but it's still a heavy bike. I can't find any max weight guidelines anywhere.
caustic meatloaf
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 10:54 am
Joined: 06 Dec 2010Posts: 1235537Location: a hammy melange...
From what I looked at online, the rack itself should be able to handle the weight of your bike. The limiting factor may be your crossbars that the bike mount is on - if you have the snap-on versions from Thule, those are limited to 34lb each, for a total supported weight of about 70lbs. If youre are your permanently affixed ones from the car manufacturer, those can support easily over 100lbs.
for a tandem, 70lbs is not wildly out of range for the overall weight of the bike.
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jimmythefly
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 12:07 pm
Joined: 10 Jan 2007Posts: 1491
You'll be fine. For peace of mind, I would probably use two cargo straps and triangulate from the frame out sideways toward the ends of the load bars, or to the longitudal factory roof rails.
That should help with side-side sway, which is what you are trying to guard against -going through a fast corner or a series of deep potholes and having the bike tip sideways and break the rack or rip the fork out of the Q/R.
That's what I do fork even normal bikes on the roof when driving the middle fork snoqualmie road.
bobhall
Posted: Thu May 05, 2016 1:16 pm
Joined: 28 Jul 2006Posts: 460
Yeah, I thought about trying to use straps to stabilize it from side-to-side motion, but the Thule tandem tray's instructions say to mount the tray directly above the rack podiums.
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