muppet question - roof bars, cycle racks and roof boxes

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[CaptainSlow]

I bought universal roof bars that grip onto the vehicle's rails. My roof box clamps onto the bars with a simple U clamp.

[langy]

Yes, they should be interchangable. Not all vehicles have the same distance between roof bar mounting points. I have some thule roof mounted bike carriers and you can move both fixings back and forth to suit.

If you have aero bars, you would just need to double check the fixings themselves (T bolts) are the same size / thread.

HTH

Edited by langy on Sunday 1st August 10:13

[FamilyGuy]

I've an old and current pair of Halfords roof boxes. The old one has space to drill new holes for the U bolts. On the new one the front clamp slides about 20cm to accommodate different bar spacing.

[Morf]

langy said:

If you have aero bars, you would just need to double check the fixings themselves (T bolts) are the same size / thread.

To emphasise langy's point here, you need to be careful with 'Aero' bars where the bars themselves tend to be considerably wider than standard bars, and often an oval shape. I've found that some accessories (kayak carriers in my case) aren't wide enough to clamp around the bars, or don't fix anything like as firmly as on standard bars with a rectangular cross-section.