Applicable to: '90 - '97 1.8 liter
These are the bike racks the busses use in Seattle. It’s an expensive solution but certainly the best I’ve found for our little roadsters. You need several things to make this work. First you need a 1-1/4 hitch, an additional expense but I found it’s stiffening properties worth it alone. The bike rack inserts into the hitch (extension needed to clear the M1 bumper that you can also get from SportWorks.) You can get it to carry 1 or 2 bikes.
Like I said, it's expensive but there are several advantages to this set up. First, neither your bike or your bike rack touch the car. There's no chances for scratching your paint or small dents. Second, You don't need to remove any tires from your bike. This not only saves time but there's really no space to put a removed bike tire in the miata anyway. Finally, you still have access to your trunk. Loading and unloading your bike is simple and if you're worried about security, you can lock the bike to the rack and the rack to the hitch and probably even to the frame of the car (although I havn't gone that far). Removing the bike rack from the hitch is also simply done with a wrench and requires a little space in the garage for storing. The bike is very well secured to the rack and the whole assembly swings around on tight turns but I've never worried about anything falling off. By far the best solution I've encountered to get your bike to the trails. It! 's worry free and you still get to have fun getting there.
Under 5 minutes to remove
| Back to Product Reviews | 5 January, 2005 |