Max wrote not long ago about the travails of
mounting a bike rack on a coupe.
Unlike Max' dreamy little number which, thanks to advanced German engineering, includes an Integrated Rack Management System, as punishment for shopping for my cars on the bargain rack I have no such capability on my
Japanese blue-light special. Further, while the BRZ forums abound with stories of people throwing their 55cm road bikes and correspondingly midget-sized mountain bikes in the boot (that's the trunk, for you Americans), my full-size road bikes have absolutely no chance of fitting back there without removing everything off the frame that can be readily removed. And that goes triple for the mountain bikes.
I live at the end of a half-mile of dirt which empties onto an unpleasant state highway, so most of my rides leave from work or a few locations between home and work. Lacking a good bike rack solution for the 28 MPG BRZ, biking has resulted in me opting for the 13 MPG pickup truck instead.
|
Yes We Can! (fit three bikes in the back seat of a pickup truck) |
So I suppose you could argue that it was an intense desire to simultaneously save the environment and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil that prompted me to give the
Seasucker Talon a try.
|
The plain brown box belies the genius held within |
The seasucker is, as the name sort of implies, a suction-cup based bike rack.
|
OK, I understand "sucker", but why "sea"? |
The company has a
nice youtube tutorial for installing the rack, in which they throw things around quite a bit for no good reason. (There is also a video some guy driving a
race car around a track with a seasucker on the roof. Best comment ever: "
I hope you uploaded this to Strava."). But suffice to say, installation is about a 5 minute affair. In my case, since my car's roof has some curves and bends, the toughest part of the install was finding a way to fit those three suction cups on flat portions of the roof.
|
White showing: No suction |
Each suction cup has a little integrated pump. When it shows white, that means insufficient suction. It takes maybe 10-15 pumps to get suction.
|
Suction |
There's also a suction cup for the rear wheel, of course. In my case I had to make sure that the pedals would clear the back window. They did, barely.
|
Horizontal top-tube for that classic bike look. |
|
Even with the bike on the roof, my car is still shorter than my truck. |
|
Having the bike on the trunk lid is growing on me. |
I've got a tall garage, so driving a car with a bike on the rack into the garage has never been a problem. But for many people that's a nightmare scenario. One potential benefit of the seasucker is that the overall height of the bike is a couple feet lower than if it were on the roof. So I bet many people
could drive their cars into the garage with a bike on top.
So far I really like the sea-sucker. Though not everything is completely rosy.
- Based on Amazon reviews, the company seems to have some major customer service "issues".. As in, they don't respond to customer concerns. That bothers me.
- Unlike typical bike racks which are "install and forget", you do need to keep an eye on the Seasucker, making sure that the cups are suctioning
- There is some periodic maintenance of the pumps required.
- The seasucker is really designed to be removed from the car when not in transit. It could be stolen in, literally, about 3 seconds. Even with a bike attached.
- Besides, without a bike on it, it looks a bit goofy.
- Pricey. Over $200 for a rack that holds a single bike. Though not unreasonable if you're comparing to a 'rack system' that you'll use only for bikes anyway.
But as I use this a bit more, if it continues to perform as it has so far, then those concerns are ultimately not significant.
1 comment:
I like it. I like the easy mount and removability feature. I suppose it kills any sunroof use, right?
Having said that, you won't be getting 28 mpg with the bike on top!
Request for next visual: Seersucker on top of the truck.
Post a Comment