[ctstark]

Now I know that this is a difficult question to ask seeing how there are many, many extraneous circumstances but I figured that getting some other MTBR help would not be so bad. Let me lay it out; my wife and I are driving across the country in our little Toyota Yaris (we are both teachers) and will be visiting friends along the way In UT, CO, WY, MT, CA etc... etc... we have a Thule Rocket box strapped to the roof to expand our space a little bit and we are basically just driving with no actual destination in mind, just go. We plan on pitching tent every night that we are not at a friends house and plan on hiking some back country in some of the National Forests.

So with that said here is my dilemma... I have been riding for nearly 15 years and love riding the technical stuff here in the NE but I have been dying to ride out west (I have only done it once before on a similar road trip but only in the NW US. I do not know if I should rent bikes (looks like $50 per day on average) or if I should bring along mine, and when we are hiking find a way to stow it away in the car so no one decides to claim it as theirs. We are driving around 7,500 miles from start to finish and I don't know if the gas mileage eaten up by the bike on the roof will equal the rental fees for 4 days ($200).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[washedup]

Always BYOB (bring your own bike) if you can. You know the bike and the condition it is in. You never how who, or how often a rental gets serviced.

 

[Call_me_Al]

On a rental, you'll spend part of your ride just trying to feel comfortable on the bike. Some rentals are crap, and like washedup pointed out, you have no idea what kind of service record it has.

I think you could fit your bike in the car when you went hiking. Move the front seats forward, take the front wheel off, turn bars sideways, and put it on the floor. I doubt the car is quite wide enough, so you'd probably have to do some creative angling. This is assuming of course that your bike is clean and you don't have a bunch of stuff on the floor. Better try it b4 you leave.