Saris Bones 2-Bike Strap-On Rack - Review

Design

The Bones' curvy, folding design not only sets it apart from the industrial look of the competition, but it's also key in allowing it to fit onto the majority of cars on the road. The arc to the injection molded plastic arms lets them clear most spoilers (unless you have a dinner table bolted to the back of your ricer) and Saris has attached giant, pivoting rubber hooves to the end of the upper and lower arms that should find traction without leaving a trace on your car's paint job. The plastic arms won't leave a trace on your two-wheeled ride, either.


So, if you have a bike with a swoopy-shaped frame, like a Devinci Wilson or the latest Demo, you can angle one arm way down while raising the other so that your bike hangs level on the rack. That might not sound like a big deal but, having worked in a shop for ages, I can tell you this: You'd be surprised at how many people end up dragging one of their wheels on the pavement for countless miles.




Three long straps run through the center barrel, and you'll find matching vinyl-coated hooks at the ends of each one. If you traced your way back from the hook at the top of the right-side upper strap, you'd end up finding the hook at the top of the left-side upper strap, and this also applies to both the side and lower straps, too. So many hooks and straps.

There are also locking buckles on each end; they're not ratcheting buckles, as Saris claims on their website. You simply pull the straps tight by hand instead.




The final detail is the rubberized, plastic straps that clamp down onto your bike. There are two of these on top of each arm for obvious reasons (if you got this far, I'd assume you know), but you might have also spotted one on the bottom of each arm as well. These are there to grab onto your bike's seat tube, or anything, really, to keep it from swaying back and forth while you're doing burnouts. Or when you just pull away from a stoplight. Pinkbike does not condone burnouts, but we don't not condone them.





Performance

Strap-on racks have always scared the bejesus out of me. I think my distrust is - or was - rooted in those tiny hooks, the ones keeping my bike from being roadkill, which hold onto my car's rain gutters for dear life like fingertips gripping the edge of a cliff that's traveling at 100kph. And the straps... sure, they make it (sorta) easy to put the rack on or take it off, but they're also subject to human error, much more so than a bigass, 2'' receiver that screams ''I CAN TOW A BOAT'' with its steely girth.

Instead, I depend on fabric straps that, in turn, depend on me to be mounted correctly. My concern is mostly the human error bit, and mostly because I know that if there's something I'm professional at, it's erroring.




But then I bought a near-useless car and needed a rack to haul bikes. No problem, right? Just get someone with a welding rig, maybe even an actual welder, to slap a hitch on the bottom of my original-style Mini and be done with it. But 'Lil Blue's pop-can undercarriage laughed at that plan more than once, so instead of the proper-yet-impossible way to carry a bike, I picked up Saris' Bones rack as a short-term solution. Let's be honest, too, 'Lil Blue suits a strap-on anyway.

Getting the Bones onto your car isn't difficult, but the straps can tangle easily when it's not mounted, so pulling the Saris out from your trunk can be a bit like pulling the rat's nest that is your headphones out of your pocket. The solution is to wrap the three straps around the rack after you fold it up, of course; that way you're not left undoing knots in the rain when you're already late for a ride. After you've done that and the straps are hanging freely, fold out the single upper arm and angle it so the rack fits closely to the back of your car, and with the two lower rubber hooves taking most of the load by resting on top of your bumper. The ribbed interface between the arms and the center barrel keeps things in position, and don't forget to tighten down the clamps, too.




The straps are pretty self-explanatory: they're labeled (upper, lower, side) so there shouldn't be any confusion as to where they go. Start by attaching the upper hooks into either your rain gutter or the panel gap between the trunk and rear window, then do both ends of the lower strap to the underside of the bumper (if it's not one of those flexy plastic ones that so many new cars are mandated to have) or to a secure point underneath the car. The side strap goes into the panel gap and you're nearly done. Snug the upper strap evenly (there's a buckle on each side), then do the same to the lower strap before checking the hooks to make sure they're secure, and then tighten the side strap as well.

The buckles seem to grasp the straps pretty firmly, but I was still scared of them backing off, so I tied a not in the strap just below the buckle to keep them from slipping. Again, they never once slipped on me without the knots, but the extra insurance made me a bit less nervous. You also need to check to make sure the straps aren't tugging on the hooks at a funny angle; they might be doing exactly that if the gap between the trunk and the rear quarter panels is at a big angle that could let the hooks slide up and release the tension on the strap.




A lot of bikes won't have any issue with the rubberized attachment straps and cradles that hold the frame, but the size of the cradles won't play nice with all bikes. My Zerode Taniwha test rig, for example, doesn't have much room between the Cane Creek shock and the top tube, which keeps the bike from being hung from the inside location because the cradle can't squeeze between the top tube and the shock. This will likely be the case with some other bikes, too, and can probably be solved by some clever angling of the frame and arms. I'm not clever, though, so I just always hung the bike on the outboard cradles - good thing there aren't two Taniwha's in my riding crew.

The cradles and straps do a good job of keeping bikes from sliding or swinging around, although they might not be long enough for some strangely-shaped frame tubes. There has also been exactly zero scuffing from them.




So it turns out that I was nervous for no reason; the Bones never once loosened its grip on any bike, and while the straps going everywhere looks a bit ghetto compared to a nice tray-style rack, the Saris setup proved to be reliable and I eventually went from looking in my rearview mirror every 17 seconds to just once every minute or so. I joke, but let's remember that I'm using a $154.99 USD rack to carry a $9,500 USD test bike. Not only did the straps refuse to back off, but the rack is also very solid-feeling once everything is tightened down - I can actually shake my little car pretty good by wrenching back and forth on the Bones, but the rack itself refuses to budge. I probably wouldn't pretend to be a WRC racer while my bike is perched on the Bones, but it turns out that my concerns were all for naught and this particular strap-on rack is up to snuff.

What don't I like? Strap-on racks are relatively inexpensive compared to tray-style setups, and they make a lot of sense for a casual rider who can't or won't go with a tray rack, but their design also means that you won't be getting into your trunk while it's on your car. And it's not exactly theft-proof, either, so you probably shouldn't be leaving it attached to your vehicle 24/7 unless you live in a town with Whoville-like crime statistics. Lock your bike? Lock your rack? Walk or hike if you not, and you deserve a smack! Lastly, both bike support arms rock on the central barrel, no matter how snug the fingers dials are done up. They won't slide or shift, but the tolerances between the ribs and the arms allows them to wiggle a bit.



Pinkbike's Take:

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