Rack for bicycles on 27 tug

[Safari]

What type of rack would be the best to buy to carry our bicycles on our 27 tug.

 

[Pete]

I thought regular bikes would be too much of a hassle, so for boating I carry folding bikes - Dahons and for more serious riding an Airnimal Chameleon. But if you really want a rack the SeaSucker might give you the greatest flexibility in terms of location and ease of instal/removal.
Pete

 

[Hydraulicjump]

I want to echo the folding bike approach. We use two fBikes because they are cheap and comfortable to ride, and stow nicely in the cave, cheap, I found out, is good after one of them took a swim off a shaky dock at Quadra Island.

This saves room on the rack for the two kayaks you are going to almost certainly want to put up there. Bikes and kayaks make for complicated messing around on the roof. Add a crab and prawn trap and things get crowded.

 

[knotflying]

We also carry two folding bikes. We bought the port runners from West Marine. We store them in the cave when not in use and when at a dock for a while we just keep them locked up near the dock.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

ps on this. A folding bike (at least my fBike) will fit in most dock lockers as well. I leave one there while the boat is moored in San Francisco. It really helps to have six gears in that city, as you can imagine.

http://www.amazon.com/fBIKE-Direct-Spee ... B00FQ08X9O

They've gone up in price a bit.

Finally, if you do go with bike racks, Yakima racks work best because they are built for a round cross bar. Regrettably, Ranger Tugs put a wimpy rack up there with tubes that are too small. So you will need to wrap something around the bar to properly secure the rack. For our kayaks I bought rubber gasket material (the kind you make your own gasket with) at the hardware store and that worked great to thicken the bar.

This putting toys on the roof is one of the things that sold us on the Ranger line. Have fun!

 

[S. Todd]

Rocky Mounts makes a tandem rack that has a pivoting fork mount so you can clamp the fork in while the back wheel is on the dock then swing the rear wheel up. Back tray slides in an out so it will go short for a single and long for a tandem. I just installed mine yesterday will try it out with the single next week. With the curved narrow diameter roof rack tubing it did take some effort with rubber gasket material and the indispensable duck tape to get her level and tight.