Roof Mounted Bike Racks

[jrpembe]

Anyone installed a roof mounted bike rack on their CX-7 (Mazda cross-bars already installed). I'm looking for an upright bike mount.

The guy at Racks Unlimited says the only one that will work is from Sportrack. Mazda's accessories page says they have a Yakima upright rack for $145US.

Anyone else find an upright bike mount that will work with the factory cross bars? My Mazda dealer quoted me $240CDN per bike mount (plus installation) for the Yakima. Seems a little steep considering the Canadian dollar is trading at around $0.91US right now.

 

[jrpembe]

Finally! All you need is a set of Yakima Mighty Mount Adapters attached to the Mazda factory rails and you can install pretty much any Yakima roof mounted rack (or box). I just got two Yakima King Cobra roof mounted bike racks (see photos). The Mighty Mount Adapters were around $60 (CDN) for a set of four - you need six to install two bike racks. On the back I have a Hidden Hitch 1 1/4" receiver and a Saris Cyclops 2 bike carrier.

 

[Sveivo]

^^That's badass!

Rocky Mounts rack will bolt up to factory bars.

 

[dirtyhat]

Roof Rack Wind Noise

Has anyone else noticed the excessive wind noise that you get from the factory roof racks?

 

[vtmazda]

The Rocky Mount Noose is the way to go, even though it is a fork mount carrier. It mounts directly to your bars with no adapters needed.It's what I have on my P5.

 

[dirtyhat]

Pic of Rocky Mount

Here is a shot of my CX-7 with the Rocky Mount and my 07 Ironhorse MTB.

 

[Sveivo]

Cool. I peeled that sticker off though

 

[Pretz94503]

I just purchased the the CX7 cross bars and will be installing it tomorrow. I will be installing my Thule combi box but plan to drill new holes and get some new clips made. Has anyone done this already? Also, has anyone modified a thule fork mount bike rack to fit the cross bars?

 

[dirtyhat]

Factory roof rack noise

Am I the only one noticing the factory roof rack wind noise or do I just have them installed wrong?

 

[CycleX-7]

Post up some more pics of these racks being used. I'm curious to see everyones setups.

Also, since my 7 didn't come with the factory cross bars...where should I get them? The dealership is high.(boom06)

Staton

 

[jrpembe]

pics back up as requested

Sorry, took the pics down a while back - here they are again. Had the factory roof cross-bars installed. Then bought Yakima mighty mounts which allowed me to have the Yakima King Cobras installed on the roof. Had a hidden hitch 1 1/4 " installed and bought a Saris fold down carrier for two bikes.

after using the racks all summer, I have to say the Yakima roof racks made me a little nervous. The specs on the cross bars says max 100lbs evenly distributed. There's a lot of flex in the bars and my bikes bounced around a lot. I'm sure they were fine, but it wasn't fun to watch through the moon roof. The one on the back was much more stable - would have liked a 2" receiver though.

 

[CycleX-7]

I know what you mean about being nervous with the bikes up there. I used a similar rack like the Yakima's pictured when I had a Suby. I actually had a bike fall over onto the other once; scary.

I've got all kinds of Yakima stuff currently, so the Mighty Mounts might be the ticket. I'm leaning towards the RockyMounts racks though for whatever reasons. I'm going for the fork mount style for my road bike and I'll decide about the other rack when I get a mountain bike. (disk brakes issue)

Thanks for posting the pics. If anyone else has photos of their setups slap'em on here.

Thanks,
Staton