Submitted by
Carbon Klein
a Weekend Warrior
from San Francisco, CA Date Reviewed: August 19, 1999
Duration Product Used:
less than 1 month
Strengths:
Convenient Inexpensive sturdy Keeps bikes safe from Theft
Weaknesses:
Bikes need to be mounted facing forward to keep the mounts out of the way when not in use...
Similar Products Used:
Thule Roof Rack
Bike Setup:
99 Klein Mantra Race
Bottom Line:
These Graber fork mounts are only $21.I bought two of them (they actually have a bar that goes across your bed and it hold several of these fork mounts and it also holds the bike wheel holders, like the KS system.... but I didn't need them) and went to Home Depot to get some #14x1 screws for $0.90 and then proceeded to screw the mounts onto the back of my rear seat in my Ford Explorer 2 door. The back of my seat seems to have a wooden board or something in it...the one inch screws work just fine. The mounts don't move at all and I attached the bike onto the mount today...then I drove around (and recklessly swerved on an empty street). The bike wobbled a little bit, but it's not significant. The rear wheel is unrestrained, but is riding on my trunk mat, so the rear wheel didn't budge an inch. It's a pretty stable structure and I must say, the bike looks great sitting inside my Explorer. One thing...the bikes face forward, so when mounting TWO bikes in there, the second bike is a pain to get in....but I solved that by locking the bike by slipping into the cabin from the driver's and passenger's door up front rather than crawling between the bikes from the rear gate. I decided to mount the fork mounts this way because they are more or less fixed in place and I didn't want them sitting near my rear gate (in which case, the bikes will be facing backwards, more convenient for loading/unloading, but that means that the middle of my trunk will have two metal fork mounts sitting there!).I decided to mount only 2 of these in my Explorer because the seats need to be folded down...so there's only room for 2 people in the car.All in all, for $45, it's one hell of a make shift bike rack...oh yeah, when I sell the Explorer, I'll remove the bike fork mounts and rub the carpet over the hole a few times and the hole disappears as the carpet expands over it! cK
Overall Rating:
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