Your web resource to find your best bike rack for car, truck, SUV or mini van

Posts Tagged ‘thule’

Thule Bike Racks On Sale

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

If you’re in the market for a new bike rack for car, truck, SUV or minivan, Thule bike racks should be among the first you consider. With a long history for making all kinds of vehicle sport racks, you’ll be assured of having one of the best made, most secure racks for your sporting equipment available with a name you can absolutely trust. And while everybody always wants the best equipment possible, price point almost always figures into the purchase equation for most people. That’s why finding Thule bike racks on sale is ideal. Getting the best product at the best price… what more could you ask for?

Before you even begin to look at price, you need to know what exactly you are looking to buy. You want to be able to compare apples to apples across multiple brands and manufacturers and there are many variables when it comes to purchasing a bike rack. For example, depending on what kind of vehicle you drive, you might be limited in your options. If you drive a convertible, you won’t be shopping for a permanently a fixed roof rack. Instead, you might be looking at a trunk mounted bike rack if you drive a car, or a spare tire mounted bike rack if you drive something like a Jeep. Alternatively, almost any car can be fitted with your standard 2 inch hitch and there is a tremendous array of bike racks, including Thule bike racks, that are made to fit into the standard 2 inch hitch set up.

If you have all options available to you, such as an SUV with a hitch mount and the rear, externally mounted spare tire, you’ll still want to decide what suits your needs best. Some people prefer to have a roof mounted bike rack because bikes aren’t the only thing they carry. Maybe they also carry surfboards, windsurfers or kayaks and need to be roof rack option to accommodate that kind of gear. On the other hand, if someone is only transporting bikes they may not want to have to wrestle with getting their bike on the roof of their vehicle and therefore would prefer a more comfortable loading height such as the trunk mounted rack, a spare tire rack or the hitch rack. Because in all fairness, it can be tricky at times to load a bicycle onto the roof of your vehicle especially if you have a taller vehicle and are not a particularly tall person.

Once you decide on a position on your vehicle where you want your bike rack mounted, you will also need to decide whether you want one that is permanently affixed or one that is quickly and easily mounted and dismounted from the vehicle itself. Like so many other things, there are pros and cons to each. If you don’t expect to be using your bike rack all that often, it may not make sense to have it permanently mounted to your car.

For the occasional weekend trip here or there, you might just want to quickly slip on your rack over the spare tire or hook it onto the truck of your car. The downside to this kind of rack is that there is a higher risk of the rack being stolen from your vehicle. Your bikes will be just as secure while transporting them, but it is when you are away from your vehicle is a bit more of a concern. Some people choose to simply remove the rack all together and stored inside the vehicle while they are off riding, but that is a choice you have to make yourself.

Might be a hitch mount bike rack. With this kind of setup is fairly easy to remove the entire rack system from your vehicle when not in use, but at the same time it can be secured (ie locked) to your vehicle for peace of mind. Many of these hitmen and bike racks are also able to easily swing away from the rear of the vehicle even with bikes mounted to it so that you don’t lose access to your trunk or liftgate.

As you can see, there are a lot of things you should work out first before starting to price compare bike racks. The good news is that totally bike racks cover all the above mentioned options plus many more. And if you’re looking for the best prices on to a bike racks have highly recommend you take a look on Amazon.com. Not only is Amazon a highly respected online vendor, but you can often find truly bike racks on sale for anywhere between 5% – 25% off suggested retail or even more. Another benefit to purchasing through Amazon is that very often you will be able to get free shipping with your order.

For example, at the time of this writing you can get the Thule 961XT Speedway 2-Bike Trunk Rack for $98.80. This saves you 24% off the suggested list price of $129.95, or the Thule 962XT Speedway 3-Bike Trunk Rack at a 10% discount with free shipping.

As you can see it is possible to get the best products at the best price. When you combine the vendors such as Amazon.com with quality manufacturers, you can get your Thule bike racks on sale so you can get out and enjoy the outdoors on your bike.

Bike Rack for Car

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

When you’re in the market for a new bike rack for car, truck, minivan or SUV, you have a lot of choices in front of you. Not only do you have many different manufacturers to choose from such as Thule bike racks, Yakima, Saris, Bell and many others, but you also have different rack mounting approaches and styles from which you’ll need to choose.

For example, you could go for a roof rack, a trunk mounted bike rack, the hitch mount bike rack if you happen to have a standard 2 inch trailer hitch installed on your vehicle, or if you happen to have a rear, externally mounted spare tire, you might opt for a spare tire mount bike rack.

Additional variables you need to consider are whether you want a more or less permanently attached bicycle rack that will be on your vehicle whether you’re transporting bikes or not, or if you would prefer a more temporary, easy on — easy off type of system. And of course you need to plan ahead as to how many bicycles you plan to transport once. Maybe right now you’re just thinking of transporting your own bicycle; but what happens if a bunch of friends want to go with you? Or obviously if you have a family and you all like to ride together, you’ll need to find a bike rack that accommodates two, three or even four bikes at a time.

Of course price plays a factor in most people’s buying decisions, and it’s no different when it comes to a bike rack for car, truck or other vehicle. However, always remember that you get what you pay for. When you’ve already invested money in your bicycle (or bicycles), the last thing you want to do is cut corners on it teeth, poorly made bike rack that may not be up to the task. And this isn’t only about the protection of your bicycle; you also need to keep in mind the safety of other people on the road. Imagine the kind of mess that could arise from a bike coming off a bike rack, or a bike rack coming off a vehicle. Not pretty.

This is also why choosing a vendor and/or manufacturer who stands behind their product is extremely important. Sometimes certain vehicles are designed in such a way that you need a very special mounting system. Even though the sales material might say “Works on almost all vehicles!”, you don’t care about that… you need to make sure it works on YOUR vehicle or it’s worthless to you. Especially if you’re ordering your bike rack online as opposed to your local bike shop, make sure there is a very clear, very straightforward return policy in place. Free shipping is something else you might want to shop around for when you have made a decision on a specific make and model bike rack.

For what it’s worth, ordering items through Amazon.com is often an excellent option. Not only do they offer top-notch customer support, but you can shop for, and across compare many different manufacturers, makes and models all in one place. On top of that, customer reviews allow you to get objective, real-world feedback about how the product works for people just like you.

Yes, these are a lot of variables to consider. However, it will be well worth your time to think it through carefully before making a decision. However, if you use the points mentioned above to narrow down the type of bike rack you want, and if you stick to the more reputable brands mentioned above such as Thule, Yakima, Saris, Bell, Schwinn, Allen or Hollywood bike racks, you should be in good shape. And again, if you’re looking to purchase your bike rack for car, truck or other vehicle online, make sure you inquire about free shipping and return policies.