Roof rack recommendations?

[Zaurusman]

I've broken out my bicycle now that spring's here and have been toting it all over the place on a trunk rack. That damned thing... it's damaging my paint with its rubber feet and wearing through some on my spoiler with the straps. I think I can adjust it to avoid the straps thing, but even if so it's still taking better care of my $500 bicycle than my $18,000 car - WTF? So ...

What's a good roof rack for our Proteges, and if anyone has one, how's it affect gas mileage? Do I need to take off the sunroof wind deflector to install it? Might do that anyway just 'cause I don't like it...

Thanks in advance.

[byenser]

I have a full Yakima setup on my 03 protege. I'm pretty happy with it so far. I use it for snowboards in the winter and mountain bikes in the summer. I've had bikes up there doing 80 on the highway with no problems. It's a good bit louder with the sunroof open and i have a fairing. Well worth it though, being able to just throw your bike up top.

Oh, you asked about gas mileage, in the winter with the big snowboard racks up there (almost as wide as the roof) i noticed about 50 miles less per tank...on average. I really haven't been paying attention to what i'm getting with the bike setup now. I'll keep an eye and post later.

[Zaurusman]

Ah, cool. What did you pay for that and where, if you don't mind my asking? On their site they list $250 for the rack. Also, which part did you pick to secure your bike? Does the rack mount securely w/o hurting anything, etc? Looks to be around the same price range as Yule, who I researched last night. With the fairing, is it fairly quiet with the sunroof closed? I get some noise with the air dam up there, so it's not as big a deal as anything else. I get around 50 miles less per tank with a trunk rack on 50% of the time, so I think that works well for me!

Thanks for your reply; I'll put them on my list for sure.