I remember doing that as a kid. My dad put the bikes on a rack he had built on the front of our van for a trip to Canada. They were pretty messy by the time we got to Val Morin, Quebec. Later we built a roof rack out of plywood, eye bolts and assorted hardware and bungee chords. You have no idea about tall until you put 25" frame bikes on the roof of a full sized Econoline.
My personal rite of passage was with my first 10 speed, a Columbia gas pipe model. I was out-growing it, so I got a long seat post. I ran the thing further and further up until I was way above the minimum insertion point. I ultimately bent the post and then the top of the seat tube. It became unrideable in the middle of a longish ride. Way before cell phones... so 20 miles or so of riding home without sitting.
Dick
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 08:35 -0400, John Betmanis wrote:
> At 10:39 PM 02/07/2007 -0700, Dan Kehew wrote:
>
> >Not setting a trunk-mounted rack high enough to avoid cooking a bike's
> >tire and tube on a lengthy automotive piggyback ride.
>
> I mounted a couple of bikes on the front of the truck for a vacation trip
> because I was hauling a camping trailer. It took about a week to clean the
> bugs out.
>
> John Betmanis
> Woodstock, Ontario
> Canada
> _______________________________________________
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Dick Schoeller
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