Bike Rack on the Tow Bar!
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Forum play.
Excellent. That's more than enough.
One of our female members will have to weigh in on rack size.
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This discussion went down hill with precipitous speed.
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Did we get any regen on the way down the hill? 😀
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To be fair, I think it was you who spooked the herd.
Some follow up:
Took a perfect excuse to try out the rack - a friend stashed most of his worldly possessions, including a bike, in my garage while he was briefly nomadic in between moves (long, covid-complicated story) and now that he's settled again I kindly delivered them back (upon my wife's urging to clean out the garage...).
First, I'm still pretty amazed by how much can fit in the car given its apparent size. It's a compact sedan/hatch but can definitely haul a bunch. I essentially moved a 1 bdr apt (sans furniture) in 2 trips.
The Thule Camber loaded with one fairly heavy bike (seriously.... I hope he didn't pay too much for it...) and mounted to the OEM hitch performed well over less than well maintained highways and surface roads. Didn't notice any sway or obvious instability with bumps/curves.
And the hatch opens well even with the rack and bike mounted - there's plenty of clearance between the rack and the hatch's travel.
Main annoying thing is the rear obstacle warning comes on loudly and constantly when you're in reverse with the rack mounted. Only a problem when reversing - BLIS and other sensors seem to work well in drive. Anyone know how to turn off the rear sensors when towing or with a bike rack?
Took a perfect excuse to try out the rack - a friend stashed most of his worldly possessions, including a bike, in my garage while he was briefly nomadic in between moves (long, covid-complicated story) and now that he's settled again I kindly delivered them back (upon my wife's urging to clean out the garage...).
First, I'm still pretty amazed by how much can fit in the car given its apparent size. It's a compact sedan/hatch but can definitely haul a bunch. I essentially moved a 1 bdr apt (sans furniture) in 2 trips.
The Thule Camber loaded with one fairly heavy bike (seriously.... I hope he didn't pay too much for it...) and mounted to the OEM hitch performed well over less than well maintained highways and surface roads. Didn't notice any sway or obvious instability with bumps/curves.
And the hatch opens well even with the rack and bike mounted - there's plenty of clearance between the rack and the hatch's travel.
Main annoying thing is the rear obstacle warning comes on loudly and constantly when you're in reverse with the rack mounted. Only a problem when reversing - BLIS and other sensors seem to work well in drive. Anyone know how to turn off the rear sensors when towing or with a bike rack?
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In the camera screen, touch the bottom half, and both the parking sensors and the automatic stop toggles show up and can be turned off.
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My concern is having the trunk open while the bikes and rack are on the hitch. Probably not very likely that I would accidentally push the button, but it would not be pretty. Probably will try to stick with the activity key while the rack is on so I don't have a trunk button.
If the concern is the hatch gate hitting the rack/bike, with the Thule Camber (a hanging bike rack) I had easily several inches of clearance between the furthest back the hatch went and the rack. (I made several guesstimates watching at how the hatch opened before attempting everything though!)
The OEM receiver stops pretty much at the rear extent of the bumper, so as long as your rack juts out at least a couple inches from the receiver, you should be good!
And in either case, the car will tell you if the trunk is opened accidentally in some way and you can use the fob to close it in case you inadvertently open it
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I have a Platform rack (1up) that tilts like this. FWIW, tilting it with 4 big downhill MTBs on it is not trivial. Anyway, what I'm talking about is accidentally opening the remote trunk feature while the bikes and the racks are NOT out of the way.
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Bummer, I just got off the phone with 1up and they said they don't offer anything that will work on our 1.25" hitch for 4 bikes - max of 3.
I wonder how the Thule Apex hanging rack is able to rate at 4 bikes? Maybe because there is less distance between the bikes so it sticks out less? Or is there a difference in physics between and hanging hitch rack and a platform hitch rack?
I wonder how the Thule Apex hanging rack is able to rate at 4 bikes? Maybe because there is less distance between the bikes so it sticks out less? Or is there a difference in physics between and hanging hitch rack and a platform hitch rack?
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I would think the platform rack weighs a lot more all on it's own.
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Yes, I did order the 1up rack, but haven't received it yet (4-6 week lead time). I ordered the 1.25" Quick Rack Single (in black) with a single add-on. I already own a 2" Quick Rack that holds up to 4 bikes, so I can poach one of those add-ons if I want to put 3 bikes on my car. Honestly, I can't imagine ever putting more than 2 bikes on the Polestar. For family trips or trips with groups of friends, using my wife's Kia Sorento with a 2" hitch just makes more sense. Plus, I'd rather put muddy friends/family in her car
As I've said before, putting 4 MTBs on a car is a lot of bikes. It sticks way out the back and definitely makes you feel like the car is gonna do a wheelie. Having said that, it works fine in the Kia and we do it all the time.
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Yeah, I bet the platform rack spaces the bikes further, so that may be part of it. There's no difference per se in the hanging vs platform in terms of the load on the hitch. Also, 1up may just be more conservative on their load rating.
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Yup, the 1up (and other burly platform racks) are HEAVY. The 1up rack for 4 bikes weighs 82 lbs.
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