insurance and your bicycle . . .

[khushy]

had a terrible year for broken bikes last year - broke one whilst falling off (twice) and had one run over by a moron in a 4x4 22 hours after I finished building it!

LUCKILY I have awesome insurance c/o of Barclays - although they only paid for the first one and I decided to employ a Motoring Solicitor for the second one - got 100% payout after just 4 months, which I was delighted about.

At the weekend, one of my buddies was transporting bikes on a roof rack + two #fastkids - on the M4 WHEN THE ROOF RACK FELL OFF at speed!!!!!

Unluckily on several fronts - both the race bikes were FOOKED and they were not insured at all and never made it to the race. British Cycling Insurance that comes as standard with membership probably won't cover any of their losses either.

Add to this, another friend had their bike nicked the week before too - uninsured.

Get properly insured people - you just never know whats gonna happen!

Khushy

[Gizmoish]

Uh-huh.

[romee2000]

How fast were they going for the roof rack to come off? I put my downhill bike on the roof of my car which weights more than all those bikes put together, drive hundreds of miles and never have a problem.
I stop and check the roof rack every hour of driving or so.
After every trip, the roof rack gets cleaned and all bolts copper greased
I have a ratchet strap around the bike and the main arm of the rack as an emergency should the mechanism fail
I never drive above 70 on the motorways (when the bike is on the roof)
I slow down for any pot hole or bump (thats mainly due to my car being very low and scraping on things)

[TwistingMyMelon]

Glad you got your insurance sorted, must be reassuring

Is your mate Dizee by any chance?

Never mind the bikes they could have smashed through someones windscreen and/or caused an accident!! How did the rack fail? Bot saying anything but they dont just tend to "fail" at "speed"

[JEA1K]

Putting mine on the house insurance ... quote for have all bikes insured was just too much.

New bike is covered by Trek's crash replacement thankfully in case I stuff it.

[bakerstreet]

Both my bikes are covered on the house insurance, but both the are under the bike price limit set by the insurance. My next bike probably won't be.

Amazed that roof rack managed to fly off. Sounds like it wasn't secured properly. If my bikes flew off the rack , then my last concern would be the bike!!

As someone else said, when ever I stop with bikes on the roof, I tend to give the anchor points a quick tug to check everything is still firm. If I know I'm stopping at services or similar, I tend to D-Lock the bike to the rack too.

My old Saab rood rack was secured by 4 10 mm bolts, so I always made sure that I had spanners and a small socket wrench in the car for tightening up the rack ect. ect.