My previous car had a towball so I had the option of fitting my bike onto a towball mounted bike rack or folding down the rear seat and putting it into the car.
Unfortunately my new car doesn’t have a towbar and whilst I can still fit one bike (and sometimes two) into the back with the rear seats down, a third really starts to push things. The other issue with putting a bike into the back of the car is that after an endurance race the bikes are typically wet and/or covered in mud.
Enter the strap-on rack. My riding partner bought a strap on rack from a local bike store which strapped underneath the car, the top of the bootlid and to the sides. And the bikes rested on a plastic lug that sat on a pole fastened by a screw and nut. Unfortunately the screw protrudes past the end of the plastic lug and scratched every bike we used on the rack.
I then looked around for a replacement strap-on that would be more gentle to the bikes but still strapped on the back. I found the Pendle strap-on rack on chainreactioncycles.com but didn’t find many reviews for it.
Unpacking the box I was immeadiately impressed. Rubber coated hooks to protect the paintwork and the supplied tie down straps were of a high quality. The rack itself consists of a simple arm which you lift the bikes over and rest them on the rubber coated section. Rather than the other design of attempting to hold all of the bikes individually seperate, the Pendle requires you to strap all the bikes together which should help keep the load stable and prevent the bikes from being damaged through swinging around etc.
The final impressive feature of the Pendle over the other design is that it allows the tailgate to be opened without removing the rack – and if you’re strong enough allows you to open the tailgate with the bikes still on the boot.
A group of three of us recently competed in the Coffs Mountainbike Marathon and the Pendle did a fine job of ferrying 3 bikes safely on the 1000km round trip.
I can easily recommend the Pendle if you are unable to use a tow-ball mount.
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