Bike carriers for roof racks - what's good?
(For both road and mtbs, if it makes a difference)
Cheers!
Old Thule 591, New Thule 598.
Quite impressed with my Ateras so far but only a few uses in.
I use Whispbars. Only takes a minute to drop them on when needed.
I'm looking at whispbars and two 598s for my new car when it arrives in a few weeks. Decent discount from roofbox.co.uk as a package and reviews for both are really good
If you are going to leave the bars on all the time then I'd try and stretch to Whispbars but Thule are perfectly OK. Depending whether your car has rails make sure you consider whether a bar that fits between them will given enough width for whatever you want to put up top (versus one that sits on top of the rails to give more width).
598's are worth it over 591's.
Yakima Front Loader. Grip the tyres rather than the frame, so no scratching. Fit onto the roof bars in seconds. Just make sure that you don't have a slow puncture when you load up. Also they don't play nicely with full mudguards, so probably not for a touring bike owner...
Have whispbars installed permanently on my Skoda Fabia 13 plate. Don’t ever hear a peep from them and the mpg is barely touched. Have a spare Thule rack that never gets used and then have a Yakima front loader rack which is permanently installed. Love it! Doesn’t make contact with the frame anywhere so I have zero worries about the clamping force on the road bike carbon. It also holds the more awkward evil frames without issue. Simple to adjust between 26/27.5/29 as well.