Hi All

I appreciate this may have been asked before about MTB carriers but I need to get a couple of roof mounted carriers for my car and I know the Thule 591 is probably best for normal round frame tubes but my road bike has aero profile tubes so am concerned that the top and bottom clamping action may not hold the frame tube securely.

Would a side to side (Exodus, Thule 532 or similar) be better as it clamps across the tube?

The considered opinions of the STW massive appreciated as always

Cheers

Ken

I don’t like racks that clamp frame tubes so use Thule 561s

Thanks Simon but I don’t want to clamp on the forks as I’ll need two sizes and I’m bound to always have the wrong one on the car

My Giant Propel fits in a 591. It holds top and bottom rather than “clamp” per se. Most of the time, it rides inside the car though. My other chunky carbon frame has also been fine. As I said the 591 doesn’t use leverage to compress any tubing like the cheaper Thule carrier.

TiRed

I’ve had 591’s before so know how they clamp. My concern is the contact area of the clamping as the bottom of the frame is only a couple of mm wide. The side to side grip of 532 would make more contact.

I suppose using a cam closing mechanism may require more force to clamp but have better surface area contact. Possibly the top to bottom compression strength of a teardrop shaped tube is greater than the side to side section

I guess there’s always a trade off somewhere