Our beloved bike rack. Holding two bikes and an inflatable paddle board (editor’s commentary: yes, it was a little bit much). Jumping up and down along with the bumps of the road. Especially when one of those hidden speed bumps gets you. Then you see and feel the whole thing jump up in excitement. Well… one such speed bump got it. We hit it so hard that our bumper half fell off and the bike rack dropped to a 45-degree angle. Thank god for a kind Samaritan who had just parked his car by that speed bump when we went over it; he saw the whole thing and proceeded to chase us down for 20 minutes to get us to check it out. Thank you, sir.
We took note of our situation - it was pretty bleak. Since we were in the middle of town and kind of hogging a busy road, we didn’t have much time to despair. We quickly unloaded the bikes and the rack and stuffed all of it in our van. This meant that Arya got to sit up front with us as there was no floor space whatsoever. She loved it. Car cuddles were nice, but it’s far less pleasant when she’d get up and move around right as we were taking a turn. We needed to find an option and soon.
A couple of days later, after spending some time on Lake Marquis - where fishermen would arrive in the night to avoid the white-capped waves that soon formed by early afternoon - we headed out to find a solution. Our time on the lake was exactly what we needed to reset from the hot days on the beach and this new challenge. Since our bumper wouldn’t be able handle a bike rack, with all the topes and rough roads, we needed one that could attach to our rear door in some fashion. We found one. After shopping in the big stores with no luck, I suggested trying AutoZone which was right next door because why not. And they had one lonely bike rack that maybe would fit our needs. Clark was hesitant at first, but I quickly showed him some pictures of people putting a sedan trunk bike rack on doors like ours, and he was willing to try. He spent a couple of hours in the hot sun right outside AutoZone with no lunch and little water, as we had accidentally filled our tanks with the saltiest water just short of seawater. Right as he was wrapping up (I helped where I could), my sister called. The first thing out of her mouth was “oh god you look homeless”. While that was not true, it felt like it given our hunger, dehydration, and lack of space in our home that day. With the bike rack all geared up for us to test it out, we quickly replenished with the tastiest Gatorades ever and a delicious Sam’s Club cheese pizza. All down within minutes of receiving it. This was one of our longest drerrands<a href=“/v-vomits/“>(V’s Vomit)</a> days.
The next day, after a bit of driving, we noticed something off with our bike rack, as it looked tilted through the rear view mirror. Wary and hesitant of another bike rack fail so soon, we pulled over into an abandoned gas station parking lot. It seemed that the rack was putting so much force at the top of the door - towards the center and away from the hinges - that it was going to become misaligned or even off its hinges if we didn’t correct this soon. Thank god for Reddit. There was an online user who shared that he put his bike rack on top of the engine in the front like you might on a sedan trunk. It felt weird, maybe unsafe, and we weren’t really sure about this. As we didn’t have much of an option though, we said what the heck and tried it out.
Now we have a bike rack that’s on the front of our car. It’s definitely very secure and it minimizes our parking footprint! Now, not only does our very military-grade-looking car get funny looks, but so does the fact that the bikes are in the front. It’s a win-win.