Carrying the family bikes on the roof

Cliveyp

Hey all. I'm more usually found snooping the road bike section of this forum, but decided this was probably a better place to put this question.....hopefully you can help me!

We are off to Center Parcs next month and are looking to take our own bikes. I currently have a single Thule 591 that i've used to carry my MTB and roadie. I've had no problems with it, but I have a slight nervousness about using it on the road bike now i've moved to a carbon frame. I'm thinking about changing this one to a fork mount - but this may be a longer term thing depending on the outcome of this thread.

I have been looking around for another pair of used 591's, but they seem to hold their value to the point that i'm as well off buying a new pair from Sandicliffe Ford Parts website (£115 for two). I have found a local person selling some Thule 532's though, but I have no experience of these. They are selling 3 of them altogher (I only need to carry 3 bikes in total) so am wondering if these are worth considering instead of the 591's? Potentially, I could then sell the current 591 and one of the 532's and put that towards a 561 which I would then use to carry the roadbike in the future.......

Please can you let me know your experiences of these carriers? Are they good for kids bikes too? We currently need it to clamp on a Frog 52, but obviously this will change. It would never need to clamp anything smaller......

nicklouse

TBH Center Parcs is one of the best ways to lose your own bikes.

rent some when there and keep yours locked up at home.

some reading search.php?keywords=stolen+parcs&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sr=posts&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

think on and check your insurance if you go ahead and see if they will be covered.

homers_double

Agreed, for £25 there is no way I'd be wanting to leave my pride & joy outside the pool for a few hours.

For the type of riding at CP their own bikes are more than adequate.

Cliveyp

Thanks for the link. I've read a number of those threads in the past and it obviously gave me some doubts. I pondered it for some time, but have decided that we will take the risk of them being there. The wife's has no value so i'm not going to be concerned if anyone goes to the effort of stealing that. My Cube will be insured (I have been meaning to take out a policy for some time so this will spur that on), and we will see what the house insurance covers for the Frog as a 'just in case'. I will also be locking them up well when they are left during the day (although that will be minimal as we have a fairly central apartment so will end up walking to a chunk of activities) and they will be locked up in the apartment over night.