My goal was singular and precise: To outfit a small station wagon with maximum equipment-carrying capacity. This meant adding a rooftop rack, of course.
Plus, I required bike-carrying options. Also needed was a cargo box for tents, sleeping bags, pads, backpacks and other gear erratum.
My car -- a five-speed Saab 9-2X -- gets good gas mileage and is a speedy little thing for driving around town. But it is not blessed with stowage, limiting the equipment I can bring along on day trips and weekend overnights.
Thus the buildup began with Thule's black, square steel load bars ($59) and the 400 xt foot pack ($145), which together assemble the base rack.
While most every automobile can be fit with a rack, the short roof length of a small car like mine often makes large accouterments like cargo boxes and kayak mounts off -limits. That's where Thule's (thuleracks.com) Short Roof Adaptor comes into play. This $115 add-on connects two additional load bars underneath the basic rack setup, lengthening the front-to-back reach of the rack by placing an intermediary bracket connection point.
With the Short Roof Adaptor, the rear rack feet sit farther back on the roof, extending the base of the bars and making a cargo box on the roof amenable to an automobile generally off-limits to such massive overhead options.
To mate the assembled rack with the Saab's roofline, I employed Thule's 2153 Fit Kit, a $60 pack tailored to my vehicle. It has shaped rubber pads for the rack feet that fit the Saab's roofline grooves. Custom window brackets hold the rack in place on the roof, ratcheting tight with the twist of a bolt.
Next came choosing a cargo box. The Ascent 1500 -- which measures 67 inches long by 35 wide by 16 high -- fit nicely on top of the Saab and provided 15 cubic feet of capacity.
At $379, the Ascent 1500 is expensive. But the box, which opens from both sides and locks with a key for security, almost doubles my car's gear-carrying limit. It's like having a second trunk.
The final step for my configuration involved adding bike mounts. I went with a pair of Thule's new Echelon bike carriers, which cost $145 each and have wheel trays and fork clamps. A knob on front changes the clamp size with the twist of a finger and a thumb, letting you easily switch different bikes on and off the mount.
A cylinder lock secures your bike to the carrier and locks the carrier to rack. Thule guarantees compatibility with all disc-brake and suspension combinations with standard 9 mm axles, meaning most every bike will fit on the Echelon.
Overall, the Thule setup on my car retails at $1,048. Pricey for sure, but without these extras the Saab is rendered almost unusable for anything necessitating a bike and lots of gear.
Stephen Regenold is a freelance journalist based in Minneapolis, Minn. For video gear reviews, a daily blog and archive of his work, see thegearjunkie.com.
Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
By STEPHEN REGENOLD
