my p5 brought the stock rack. i was wondering how i go about putting bikes on it. ive never used one in my life and have no clue if i need to buy anything else to put the bikes up there. thanks!!
I work at a bike shop and am picking up a couple of the new yakima forklift mounts that are a unversal fit for most stock cross bars. I bought one from REI just to test it out and then will return that one and prodeal from yakima thru the store. What I found was that the Forklift rack is a bit too long to have the hatch open properly so I am going to talk to a guy I work with that owns a machine shop and see if he can't help me cut them down about 4.5". That should leave enough room to mount most bikes up on top and give ample clearance for the hatch to open. I'll let you know how it goes and how hard it was to modify. As soon as I can I will post some pics. The rack itself is very sturdy, lifetime warrany and didn't look like it was splaying out into a "V" too much with a bike on it. Super easy to install just a bit too long. Hope this helps.
I have two Rockymounts installed on my P5's stock roof rack. These are short enough that you can fully open the hatch without the rack hitting the rear spoiler. I've been using them for about half a year, and I think they're the best.
Just Got back from the machine shop and installed the yakima forklifts. AWSOME!!! Super easy to do even with out a machine shop. Cut 4" off the back end and re-drill the holes for the end caps... done! We used a drill lathe that ovalized the holes for the end plug like it was stock but I'm sure you could similar results with a regular drill. The bars are soft aluminium so they're easy to drill thru and then move the drill bit to get the oval shape or just drill slightly larger holes. I'll post some pics later today.
That's just for the Bracket to allow you to use the yakima Bike mount. The bike mount itself you have to get from yakima and there way more then $40. Trust me, the forklift is awsome and a fork mounted rack is sturdier then the wheel mount ones.
I picked up the Thule Ride-on Adapter kit (around $40 from my LBS). I had my old Thule Velo Vise mounts/trays from my old Civic - using the short bars supplied with the kit, I had to put the Velo Vises on backwards, with the mount toward the hatch. Otherwise, they would interfere with the spoiler when the hatch opened. I've used the Ride-on for about five years now without any issues.
I picked up the Thule Ride-on Adapter kit (around $40 from my LBS). I had my old Thule Velo Vise mounts/trays from my old Civic - using the short bars supplied with the kit, I had to put the Velo Vises on backwards, with the mount toward the hatch. Otherwise, they would interfere with the spoiler when the hatch opened. I've used the Ride-on for about five years now without any issues.
Yeah that would work to but I never liked the way crossbars looked on top of crossbars. Yakima universal mighty mounts do the same thing. The other way to do it is to get some Q-towers or something like that and use thule or yakima cross bars instead of the factory cross bars but again I don't like the way two sets of crossbars look on any car. Just my opinion... I swear I'll get pics up soon.
By the way how do you get pics to show up in the post instead of as an attachment?
