Transport your LeMond with a LeMond Bike Rack?

Fascinating concept. Two critical items:

Weight limit?

Impact on car’s paint?

Great idea. I’m just too paranoid to trust it with a high end bike.
I’m thinking its not such a great idea to mount it to the sunroof glass since the forces in the x,y,and z surely are more than it was designed for. A gusty side wind will make a roof mounted rack tray flex a lot. So now you start having sun roof leaks.

Fine as long as you stick them to a Sun/moon roof or other glass style roof – DO NOT use on the metal roof direct, leaves small round ring indentations in the metal!

I own a mini bomber and at first I held the most common concern that seems to be attached to this rack…trust! Well I can tell you that this suction cups will hold your bike like is nothing. I have driven my car at 85 mph + on the highway with two bikes attached to it and that mini bomber did not even lose a pound of pressure. The are auctions cups similar to the ones that the use to mount glasses during construction of buildings and those glasses are considerably heavier that the heavier bike out there. They are also very portable and will fit right on you bike case if you are traveling. My sckeptism about the security of the bike is gone. These racks will hold no question about it.

Ive been using a Sea Sucker mini bomber for a few years now. They really suck in a good way. There is no way on earth it could get pulled from the roof and doesn’t leave any marks on the paint.

I have been using the talon and mini bomber for several year now with no adverse effect on the paint or leAks on my sun roof. Keep your cups clean and your clean. Sold my Thule racks roof mount
Best rack I have traveled with mounts to any rental i have ever had.

Dar

@Mike- dooood, chill. Not a personal attack on you or your rack choice. I fully stand behind my concern that these could cause sun roofs to leak if your bike sees heavy wind while driving. Also, I’m anti-fork mount racks as it’s putting a large amount of stress on your dropouts that aren’t designed for it. Before you say “it’s just like a wheel! lol!”-wrong, it’s just like holding your wheel in place and violently vibrating your bike left and right, placing all the force on the dropouts. I’m much more a fan of full bike racks- not to mention negating the need to remove wheels every time.

Yeah, I’ve got no experience with these; it sounds like you’ve had a good experience, nice to know.

OK everyone……. I can see that there are some concerns here, and things might be getting a bit heated. So I will answer the questions and concerns from the factory side of things after I was asked to by LeMond.

1. You CAN mount our racks directly on the sun/moonroof without problems. One of the great things about our rack systems is that, unlike a traditional fork mount system, there IS some movement that can happen with your bike on the roof. The vacuum cups act at shock absorbers as well, and if you put your bike into our rack, you will see that you do have lateral movement to each side slightly to counter crosswinds. This reduces strain on your forks, and reduces the stresses put on your fork in areas such as cornering and crosswinds. And with multiple cups on our racks, all forces are distributed and dissipated evenly across the footprint of the rack. We have not received phone calls or emails regarding leaking or broken sunroofs as a result of using our products. The downside to putting them on the sunroof is that you cannot use the roof while you are driving with our racks on it, and I personally recommend placing the rack on the paint between the sunroof and your front windshield so you can enjoy the beautiful view while you drive.

2. Our racks will not leave indentations in your paint. We use vacuum technology, and not suction. We are actually removing the air from the inside of the cups, creating a negative air space inside. The pulling force comes from the air pressure above it pushing down on the cup, the same way that water pressure pushes on a door of a car that has gone into the water. Our cups average 220lbs of pulling force per application. The pulling force referenced is the amount of physical force required to actually remove the cup from the surface, and not the amount of force that is being placed upon the surface of the car. That being said, you do not want to use our cups on a surface that has been wrapped, as it will pull the wrapping off the car in the spots where the cups are while in use.

3. Depending on your water situation in your area, rings can be left on your car. These normally will come right off, as this is the leftover residue from the water that was used to apply the racks. For some cars with a very high gloss finish and soft wax, some rings may show in the surface wax of the car, which will buff out. But in no way is the paint of a car affected by our products. We have our racks on high end cars around the world, without complaints of long term problems and effects on paint. We even have high end dealerships in the US who are SeaSucker dealers, and offering our products to their clientele since they believe in our products, and it is a great option for those who would like to carry their bikes. We recommend using distilled water on the paint for your car if you are in an area with a higher mineral count in your water, or if you are in an area where you have hard water to prevent water rings. But again, these rings will NOT leave permanent blemishes or marks in your paint, and will come off of your car.

I hope this answered some of the concerns and issues that have been brought up here. Now let’s just all do what we love to do, and hop on our bikes and go for a ride……….

Devin you don’t know what you are talking about so why are you posting?

These things are very dangerous. Do a search for Seasucker rack fail.

Who’s is Lemond bike, 89 Time Limited edition in the photo? Am after one of those