Bike Racks!!! Any ideas?

You people with actual mountains close by **** me off....

I bought a hitch cargo tray and four bike wheel trays and bolted them to a Thule cross-bar. I hang the cross bar off rear window and rest rear wheels of all four bikes in the cargo tray which carries the load. Tie everything together. Have room for probably two more bikes.
Rides fine. An occasional swing movement with sharp turns, but holds position good. Pipe insulation protects LR3 and glass from metal contact.
Bikes ride in back mounted vertical.

I have not mounted it in a while… So I don’t have pics readily available.

Resurrecting this thread in case anyone is wondering about carrying more than four bikes.

I am a new owner of a Lolo Rack, made in Portland, Oregon. It can take up to six bikes.

It's not the cheapest solution. But it's super well made.

It hangs the bikes from the handle bars, which means I don't have to worry about frame wear or tire inflation fluctuation when going from high mountains to the sea level like other solutions.

It can be tricky if you use aero bars, but there is a solution for that. It would also be tricky if you needed to carry a small kids bike like a 16" or less, but there is a solution for that too. The blue noodle part is because I have a rear bike rack.

When I put my bike on the Lolo Rack I am completely comfortable that it's secure and there will be no frame wear marks.

I have 8 and 10-year old daughters that like to ride. I also have a receiver hitch on order. I did so with a bike rack in mind (among other things). The one annoying thing is that I have to disable the rear parking sensors with a GAP tool? That's kind of insane. It's a bike rack for gawd sake.

This rig is too smart for its own good.

There's a button in the middle part of the dash to turn off the park sensors. I have a traditional bike rack with the two arms that support the bikes by their top tube. I would not get that kind again, our bikes have too much variety in frame geometries to fit nicely. I dream of getting a Lolo rack.

Thanks @ftillier . Yes, now that you mention it, I do recall seeing a button like that. Well, that makes a lot more sense. Heck, you could even take it though a regular car wash if you cared to. (We have a touchless that actually does a pretty good job, but now I mostly hand wash it.)

I have this button:



I can turn it off; but as soon as I go in reverse again the sensors become active so I have to turn it off every time! I have a 1up rack which is a beautiful piece of engineering but sits right in front of the sensor; not sure how to turn this off more permanently? It's a 21st century issue...

For ~10 years I've been using Kuat tray style rack, initially 2 bike and later upgraded to 4 bike. Kuat makes a wonderful rack, but these days our Kuat is in a 2 bike configuration and mostly used on my wife's Evoque. With the 4 bike configuration, the Kuat rack is heavy and unwieldy. Additionally, as mountain bike bars have gotten wider the bike in the first position is dangerously close to the LR4 rear window. On a rough road I've had that first bike hitting the rear window so hard that I stopped and wrapped a rag around the bar end just to save the window!

Last year I upgraded to Alta Rack with 6 bike trays for the LR4. Love this rack! It nicely works with a variety of bikes, easily lowers to allow rear access, and holds bikes far more securely than the tray style rack. With the rack lowered, the rear window and tailgate have plenty of clearance. With the rack loaded it takes 2 people to put it up, but if you have multiple bikes on there presumably you have some helper(s) available...so no big deal.

The rack is HEAVY (approximately 70 lbs). For the OP this may be a dealbreaker, but it sure works well for us. I can install/remove it solo, but it is a lot easier with 2 people.

There is some debate between bar mounted (ie Lolo, North Shore, Yakima, etc) and wheel mounted (Alta, Velocirax, etc). Most of my bikes have carbon bars so hanging the bike by the bars scares me. I'm very happy with the wheel mount, including some rather rowdy approaches to trailheads. Bikes are secure and the rack handles rough roads far better than any tray style, especially for mountain bikes.

For times when I want more security and don't have more than 2 people in the vehicle, I use Kuat Dirtbag mounts secured to a piece of 80/20 aluminum. This provides an easily portable and adaptable bike rack. The rack simply sits inside near the tailgate. Bike goes in backwards, fork mounts to the rack, and all is nicely secured inside of the vehicle. I appreciate not having to worry about the bike being stolen, and on longer road trips in inclement weather the bike is safely inside. Of course not more than 1 rear seat can be used this way...but for just going out to ride with a friend or for going to a race etc it is perfect. Pics/details available on request.