By Chad Strawn (Dirtelk) on Monday, September 10, 2001 - 06:07 pm: Edit

I'm looking to throw a rack onto my 95 Disco. I'd haul all the camping gear etc. on it...but also would like to know if some of the racks have some sort of conversion where you could mount a couple of mountain bikes on the cross bars. I'd also be throwing a canoe on top sometimes as well.

Are there some good options out there? If so, where should I look at purchasing them through? I don't want to just toss on the Yakima pieces for bikes/canoes and not have anything left over for cargo space.

Thanks.

By David on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 - 03:01 am: Edit

One caution, be careful how much weight your considering dropping on your roof. It seriously raises the center of gravity of your rig, and makes it much less of a traffic "racer". I rarely put more than a hundred pounds up there (no more than two kayaks, and some gear).

I use the Yakima Mega Warrior. Allows me to mount my sea kayaks, bikes (although I leave those to the hitch rack, putting the bikes on top makes them too high in the air for my liking), skis and of course anything I can put in the basket. Oh ya, I have 3 sets of lights mounted there too. I went with the Yak setup, because I can remove it myself when I want to go to the car wash, and after pricing out all of the accessories, lights, etc. it still came out to be less than the cost of JUST the rack for the LR adventure rack, Hannibal, etc..

By Chad Strawn (Dirtelk) on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 - 05:18 pm: Edit

Thanks David...that is something I will consider. Do you happen to have pictures of your setup? What kind of lights do you have mounted and how did you run the wiring? What kind of hitch rack do you use for the bikes? What are the lengths of bars you used for the kayaks and basket?

Thanks once again...

By gp (Garrett) on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 04:12 am: Edit

chad~

i have a wilderness rack by garvin. there are 2 sizes. mine is roughly 7'X4'-6" (larger size). i wanted it mainly for when i travel with the dogs, since it leaves me little space for anything else. the rack is rather pricey, about $600 shipped. it does have attachments for Thule or Yak bikes and so on. the rack is also flat and therefore will haul a canoe easily. i have not tossed my mad river up there yet, but it will be a little harder reach with the new rack. it has several attachments for lights, jack, tires, shovel, cans and so on. i have a pair of hella 2000's i just mounted and need to do the wiring this weekend. the rack comes in a few boxes and weighs over 100 lbs easily. once together (took about 30 minutes) the racks it very stable and seems to be quite strong. i have yet to really use it, but so far i am impressed with it. not all that loud either. with the sunroofs closed i do not know it is up there. the milage should suffer a little, but when it is already pretty bad who really cares. here is their site: www.garvin-industries.com
i got mine from nathan crabtree. (boatbuggy@aol.com)
i don't like the hitch mounts. i would rather toss my gear on top and put the bikes in the back. (if no dogs) i don't trust people behind me and it only makes visability that much worse.

By Thogan (Tgh08) on Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 10:16 am: Edit

I recently purchased a Thule Playpen basket with the extention section. It works great. Complete set up with load bars, super high feet, basket and extention cost approximately $500. It has a locking system and can accept all Thule/Yakama accessories. Looks great and includes a wind screen to display any cool decals. Look at it at Thule.com. I purchased by thru an outside vendor and it was cheeper.