Help! I Can’t Work a Bike Carrier

This is the tangled mess of bikes and bike rack that we finally got off the car and onto the driveway. It was supposed to be easy. There has GOT to be a better way!

I have been told time and again that getting a bike rack for the back of my car is 'easy'. Well...maybe the BUYING part of it is easy, but the PUTTING IT ON part and the TAKING IT OFF part...and GETTING THE BIKES ON AND OFF OF IT part....

... well, that's all a NIGHTMARE!

First let me start by saying the boys and I are short. And you need the leverage of being tall and able to lift the bikes onto the bike rack to make it seem easy. When you have three short people trying to lift bikes over their heads -- and HEAVY bikes at that --you're already starting at a deficit.

But I am jumping ahead. Let's start with the purchase of the bike rack. I went to a lovely bike shop and a lovely man sold me a bike rack at a very good price. He even came outside and put it on my car and adjusted all the straps so that my boys and I could see exactly how it's done. AND he even put some of the bikes from his shop onto the rack so that I could see exactly how to load and secure our bikes.

The first time we tried to put the rack on ourselves and load the bikes, we realized that despite the fact that it's supposed to hold three bikes, there is no way we were getting three on there because it was bad enough the way the first two got tangled. We had to, while trying to hold these heavy bikes over our heads in the air, simultaneously move around pedals and handlebars and adjust the things that were designed to hold the bikes in place. We somehow managed to finally get that done, and were already exhausted and sore by that point, without ever having actually gone for a bike ride yet.

Despite all the tightening of straps and the fact that I barely drove over 25 mph, just going over the railroad tracks and dealing with the bumps that are supposedly 'fixed' potholes was scary with the bikes bouncing along on the rack.

We got to the parking lot of the bike trail and one of the bikes had almost slipped out of all its nooses and harness straps. So I guess that no matter how well you tighten everything, you have to pull over every five minutes to re-tighten them or they will loosen up to the dangerous point.

The boys went for a nice, long ride (CLICK HERE for excellent info on the bike path and some great pictures) but I had to go for a WALK instead since I couldn't fit my bike on the rack that was supposed to, in theory, hold three bikes.

Then we loaded everything back up, sweating and pulling back muscles and hurting body parts while trying to maneuver these heavy bikes back onto the rack with 87 degree sunshine melting us, and we drove home.

Same slow driving, same slight bumps, but this time when we got home, the bikes had somehow become so tangled in themselves and the carrier that we could not get them apart. First we all tried holding them in the air and untangling the mess, but when we ran out of the strength to do that, we decided  to instead loosen the whole bike rack and let everything fall to the ground and then work on it from there.

And still, it took us a good HOUR, an almost-broken spoke, and the help of a kind neighbor before it was all done.

And this is supposed to be EASY?????

I don't have a car with a trailer hitch, and I hear those bike racks are much easier, but all I have is a small car. I can't even go three miles to the bike path without this mess??? Crazy!

And please don't tell me that, for three miles, we can just ride to the bike path. Not happening. I see the way the tourists drive down Ocean Avenue and over the bridge from Point Beach to Manasquan and I wouldn't put my kids in a position to get KILLED doing that.

Got a pick-up truck I can borrow?