Fork Mount Bike Rack: The "Porsche" of solutions? (long)

[Geoff H.]

[See photo series illustrating all this in my MINI2 Gallery -- link at bottom of this message]



Like a lot of folks (it seems) I wanted a fork-mount bike rack setup for my Mini. I read through everything I could find here and elsewhere, visited some specialty "Sport Rack" shops... and finally decided to go the "Mini Factory bars" + "somebody elses mounts" approach.

As I looked at all the various Yakima and Thule based solutions (for attaching to the Mini bars), I was not very encouraged. Yakima appeared a complete no-go. Thule will work, but the front mount is held by only one bolt and the rear requires drilling. And then there are no good solutions for holding the front wheel on the factory bars.

Then I looked at a friend's Audi TT roof rack. He got it at the Audi dealer. Very similar bars to the Mini's and some pre-doctored up, relabeled Thule mounts (same one bolt on front though). I was encouraged enough though to look some more at German car dealers' parts counters and web sites.

I struck gold at Porsche. They have a fork mount system that fits their very-similar-to-the-Mini bars. They call it their "Racing Bike" mount. They say it won't work on suspension forks -- but the only I can see that might cause them to say that is that the front fork skewer on the mount is the old, thin kind. Here are my observations about the Porsche "Racing Bike" mount:

1.) It's EXPENSIVE. $210 retail - and the cheapest I found it was for $159 at Suncoast Porsche in Florida (who does a big mail order parts business): http://e-partssales.com/Merchant2/me...Code=POTE996TR

2.) It's super-well built. Lots of real metal. Much higher quality feeling than Thule or Yak stuff. It also comes with an attachment to hold the removed front wheel to the rack. It's made for Porsche by a German company called "Oris" ( http://www.oris-gmbh.de ) according to their website, their stuff is available only through the car manufactures they sell to.

3.) It's designed for a 3/4" track in the rails. Mini's factory rails have a 1" track. You buy a few stainless steel 1" fender washers to slip into the mounts and you're good-to-go.

4.) The bike rides very strong/stable on the roof -- as good as anything I've experienced with Yak and Thule.

5.) Security of the rack (and your bike on it) is a concern. The whole Porsche thing slips on the Mini rails and tightens down with big, easy to use plastic knobs. No locks are included or adaptable to this system. If you walk away from the car with a bike on it, you'll want to run a cable through the bike down to the Mini rails at least. I would also plan on removing the Porsche portion of the rack system when not in use so it doesn't get swiped (by evil-doing Mini owners ) -- but again that's super easy on and off!

6.) It works and looks great on the Mini: No interference with the hatch (when opened), the antenna, or the sunroof --- with or without the bike on.

I'd be happy to field questions on this --- hopefully others will find it helpful. I tried to annotate the photos in the galllery about how it all goes together.

Good luck!