I was travelling up the busy M6 northbound yesterday when a 4 by 4 goes tearing past (70+) in the fast lane with a few bikes on the back, next thing I see is a bike tumbling down the motorway shedding bits and wheels, the cars behind had to take evasive action to avoid the tumbling frame. I had to go up hard shoulder to avoid the wheel coming across the carriage way with resultant cars swerving.

The driver was unaware of the incident until one of the cars caught up with him further up the motorway where he pulled in.

Shame on losing a bike but it had the potential to cause vehicle damage or worse a serious accident behind.

Well done for avoiding the wheel!

Happened to me travelling up the M3 about 15 years ago. Still shudder when I think about it. I learned two things:

1. Alway use some form of secondary lashing to hold the bike on

2. Even if you passenger does say they have put their bike on properly, each of the 3 times you ask, still check.

🙄

sat in traffic on the m25 the other week and saw someone sat on the hard shoulder adjusting their rack. They seemed happy with the job, and got back in the car to drive off. Neither of the lower 'hooks' (that you normally clip onto your bumper or lower boot lip) were attached to the car at all, just blowing in the breeze – no sign of sideways straps either so the only thing holding the bikes on were 2 straps at the top and a bit of gravity

😮

I often see boot mounted bike racks with the lower hooks just dangling or dragging along the road.

my lower straps keep coming loose .Luckily the top ones fit from inside the tailgate with the straps wrapping round a large plastic cylinder which sits inside then the straps come out over the top .That way at least you will never loose the rack by a top strap popping off.I always stop after a couple of miles as everything settles down to do the bottom straps up again just to make sure

As you put the bikes on it stretches the tensioned upper straps and relaxes the lower ones, sometimes enough so that they unhook. Best to re-tension all straps after loading the bikes.

The straps with dollies that jam inside the tailgate are ~1000% safer than the ones that merely hook over the door.

Those racks that just hook onto the tailgate scare the crap out of me. If there's someone in front with one, I overtake ASAP.

slightly OT…can anyone recommend the towbar mounted ones? do they take kid's bikes well?

I find that the bottom straps loop through the tow hook underneath the bumper quite well, but I prefer to just keep the bike in the car if it's just me.

halfords do a towbar mounted rack which always worked well for us with no problems. you have to dismantle the towbar though and fit a plate behind it so only works with some cars.

Always always ALWAYS tie a knot in my tie downs to stop them slipping, I fear this happening so bad!

Transporter i bought one of these and its superb and super stiff http://www.towequipe.co.uk/products/974000-thule-hang-on-towbar-3-bike-cycle-carrier-974-free-pandp.html?source=googleps

bargain too !!

Believe me, I felt sick when mine went bouncing down a dual carriageway at a weekend. Bike attached to cycle carrier but foot attachment for roof rails sheared. 😯

Try retrieving bike bits and pieces from a carriageway when cars are swerving in all directions.

Just driven back from s. of France and there are often reports of bicycles falling off on the autoroute radio. Best was two sofas having fallen off – on two different roads!

I always tie the bikes as well. Then even if one of the arms accidentally lets go, as happened once, the bikes still stay up.

Yeah I use a long wire cable thing with a plastic ball at either end that goes inside either door or boot depending on roof or rear/towbar. That way if the rack fails either at point of attachment of bike to rack, or rack to car; its not going to part with ther car.

Oh and leffeboy saw a Goat standing on top of a bus whizzing past once in Zimbabwe. Had a kind of head bent forward downhill kind of expression…. 😯

….and this is why I stick my bike in the back of the car 😉

Jamie – I agree! But I did not expect a Th*le part to shear and then they had the audacity to dismiss my complaint.

Really? I would not back down. People pay more for Thule for the peace of mind bits will not go pop.

Had a bike fall off a Halfords rack (my fault 😳 ). Fortunately it got its front wheel stuck on my mate's bike's pedal so I just dragged it to death for about five miles….

Got an estate now 8)

I have always used Thule fork mount racks but only after I modify them t have two mounting points on the front bar, the single pin system fails often, i got home after a short drive to find mine had sheared and only luck kept my bike on the car. I double drill the rack and put a U clamp on instead of the single pin.

We have just come back from a trip to Wales and used our new bike carrier for the first time. It was absolutely superb which you would expect from looking at the price. thule towball mounted carrier

I've had three Thule roof rack bike carriers fail. I always use a cable lock to tie the bikes to the roof bars so they can't go anywhere. Thule just send out replacement brackets FoC without quibbling so they know it happens.

halfords value tailgate jobbie here..
no problems so far..
check.. check and check again

My old car wasn't really set up for bike carrying, but I found a boot-mount carrier with a seperate ratchet-strap wrapped through the boot and around the bikes was more than secure.

"…fast lane…" 🙄

and…

"Who's…."

🙄

I remember heading to a race with a mate donkeys years ago, we spent so long carefully strapping the bikes to each other and putting foam wedges in we forgot to strap the bikes to the rack itself. Once we got to around 70mph they caught the wind and flew about 30ft in the air, hit the road then went under an HGV. Not made that mistake since…

I only use towbar mounted racks, especially after following a mpv on the m5 last week on the way down to cornwall, he was fully loaded with 4 bikes on the back with a strappy rack.

kept flashing my ligts at him to pull over as the bottom 2 straps had came off and 1 of the side straps …. managed to get by the side of him and pointed at the rack , but from what i could see , he just carried on down the m5 …

mate of mine lost his license for having a sofa fly out of a trailer near longforgan !

smashed on the dualer and cars were going EVERYWHERE

made the county rag n everything – when we found out it was him we ripped the shit out of him ….. he thought gravity and weight would hold it in at 60 !

Interesting to hear that the clamps or fixings for roof rails can fail, I had never heard of or thought that that could happen? I might pack an extra strap to secure the roof mounted bike to the roof rail for good measure.

My policy when carrying bikes on a rack is to put your own bike on yourself.
Was in the States a few years back and had a newbie lass with us. Got up to 70 (smoothly) and clunk, off a bike went cartwheeling , here was me thinking ****, hope that's not mine, while cars behind and coming the other way dodged around it. turned out it was the gal's bike. felt a bit bad for not checking it before we left, but at least I hadn't put it on. buckled front wheel, bent bars etc so it was a hire bike that day for her. Not sure if I'd be confident in the frame strength anymore either..

Happy enough with the bike inside the Mondeo estate these days.

Might be the same guy I saw a couple of weeks ago on the M56, but this was roof mounted bikes on a people carrier. He pulled out in front of me and it was perfectly clear that one bike still wasn't attached properly. As we moved into middle lane that bike fell sideways (thankfully towards other bike on roof) but the goober seemed happy pootling onwards reagrdless. As we passed him I gave a hand gesture that suggested his love life had been rather poor and a finger pointing upwards just to make sure he knew he was going to loose some cargo. He stopped again, and I didn't hear anything that day about the M56 being closed at all.

(People in glasshouses etc, had a similar problem last time I was out, got a new frame and a Thule rack that clamps the downtube, so I think I'm a bit concerned about damaging the downtube and not tightening the clamap enough. Mate isn't concerned about bike damage so he just wound it up and got it secure!!!!)

Managed to melt and explode the tyre of a bike hanging on the back of my old skoda. A combination of rear engine/short exhaust and bad bike positioning. Sounded like a gun going off and didn't figure out what it was till we got to our destination.