Cheap bike rack

Because we don't have a roof rack for our car (our old one from our Audi wagon doesn't fit--the cross bars aren't long enough), here is how I fastened our bikes to the roof of the car for a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine.

At first it was an all-zip-tie affair. I zip-tied the bike wheels to the roof rails, then zip-tied the bikes together in a sort of tee-pee. It was incredibley strong laterally. But it turns out that any fore-aft movement of the car puts a great deal of stress on the zip ties holding the wheels because as the wheel tries to roll, it acts as its own fulcrum and lever. I popped a few of the zip ties as we got on the freeway. So I pulled over and strapped the wheels to the rails using pedal straps from my toe clips. This held without problem, probably because they are a bit more flexible than zip ties. Or rather, the failure mode is not sudden the way it is for zip ties.

It worked really well after the toe straps. Our friends Ted and Cara took the bikes home on the back of their Odyssey.