Carbon Bike and Roof Rack

thomaswilliamrogers

Hi,

I have had a search within the Bikeradar forum for information on roof racks for carbon road bikes and it seems there are several opinions on the way forward.

I am aiming to drive to the South of France this summer and my GF and I intend to take our carbon road bikes. From my research I know that the Thule 561 roof carrier will serve my bike ok since I have aluminium dropouts on the carbon forks. However my GF's bike has full carbon forks and the suggestion is that the Thule rack isn't designed for this.

I don't want to take the risk of clamping the carbon frame, although I would clamp the seat post (this is aluminium). Looking on the thule website the only options for clamping a bike are on the down tube - So can anyone suggest a roof rack that will clamp to a seat post, or perhaps share any experiences of using the Thule 561 rack with full carbon forks.

The obvious thing would be to shove the bikes in the boot, but then this reduces my luggage space massively. I would also prefer not to mount my bikes to the boot as I knackered my bumper last time i tried this.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

Monty Dog

Never seen any evidence of a carbon bike being damaged by a roofrack (except over-tightening the downtube clamp) - you'd need to strap it to the back of a F1 car to create the kind of stresses an 80kg rider at 50mph would create riding it. Any disclaimer is a just a cop-out by the rack manufacturers because they can't answer the question unequivocally.

mustgettaller

There was a post a few weeks ago on the BR forums about exactly this (don't have it to hand right now, sorry).

One solution suggested was to use a rack on which the bike is attached upside down (by design of course!).

Chrisrebbeck

You really really shouldn't worry about clamping your bike with a Thule 591. People get so worried about it and I was too but went for it and put my cervelo in it all the time. On the 591 you can adjust the torque of the closure system if your really worried. I use a little extra padding (so the gear cables don't rub the frame) but due to the shape of the clamp (forms a diamond) you don't need to shut if down hard at all! Also loads and loads of pro teams use them (as well as other clamp brands) and they would not send their pros down hills at 60mph on bikes which integrity of the frame they were worried about due to clamping. 561s are great too but you have your full carbon fork issue and you also have to store the wheel in the car then. I would be more worried if you run carbon deep section wheels on the tie down system (the same on 591 and 561).

smidsy

So your happy to clamp your wheels into the forks, sit on the bike (adding weight and force) and ride on UK roads (full of potholes) but are worried about clamping the same forks on a roof rack - why is this?

Just get the damn roofrack already :-)

Mikey23

Hopefully not hi jacking the thread too much as the answer seems to be resounding yes, I have a similar question..

Do you folks think its ok to clamp one of those topeak arm things to the back of my carbon seat post in order to use a carrier box for a holiday in France? This is only about the size of a shoe box and I would be very lightly packed being a credit card hotel type holiday. I have it on my metal defy 4 but I'm getting negatives from the bike shop people I know

Jauncarlos67

Although i am a newbie to road cycling, I have Thule 591 carriers a carbon and an alloy bike and have used it lots of times and never had a problem, I have also lent them to friends with carbon bikes who went to Belgium using them with no problems.
The Thule systems is superb for carrying bikes, can't praise the system enough.

Buckie2k5

make sure you have a cover of some sort, if it starts raining you will be dripping bits of frame all over france.

mustgettaller

Buckie2k5 wrote:

make sure you have a cover of some sort, if it starts raining you will be dripping bits of frame all over france.

Not to mention the burn holes in the car roof. Carbon fibre solution is corrosive, you know (have you seen Alien?).

thomaswilliamrogers

Thanks all for the help, I will look in to the Thule racks and see how i get on.