I use Inno for my snowboard rack. Mine holds only snowboards/skis (no bikes) and I'm pretty sure it's a cheaper alternative. I picked it up new from someone on i-club for $180.

 

i've always been yakima... when i got the wagon i sold my old q-mounts and went to the yakima lowrider system. it's super convenient and i can throw them on a bunch of other cars with factory mounts... i'd consider this setup before you go and buy oem crossbars.

 

I like Yakima racks, but Thule attachments.

My wife yelled at me for it. "You can't put Thule trays on a Yakima rack!"

Oh yeah? Watch me.

 

I have OEM cross bars, yakima ski rack, and thule wind fairing.

I picked up OEM crossbars with yakima ski racks of craigslist few years ago and wanted to put on a fairing. Yakima didn't have a wind fairing that was for a bar other than the round ones, so I picked up a Thule fairing, modified the clamps a bit, and attached it to the bar with Yakima clamps.

 

I run a Thule on my wagon on the factory rails with the 450 Feet, 50" bars and a 32" fairing. I had some old Trays that I re-used as well as one of those huge boxes for longer trips. The fairing is a must, it cuts down on so much wind noise and my mileage on the highway only suffered 1-2 MPG. Factory crossbars are sort of arched, weight limited to 100lbs.

Waited until REI had a sale then priced out both Thule and Yakima racks - the Thule was about $75 cheaper out the door, so now it's on the car. Don't forget the locks.
FWIW, I would like to get a Yak Road Warrior basket in the future, but you can't go wrong with either brand.

 

Get whatever's cheaper. I got a great deal on a Yakima rack, so I went with that.

 

^ what lurk said

i already had thule bars and a box. so i went that way. all to find out my box wint fit the sti....

they are both great. i have sold both. thule i think uses better treated bars, but they will both be here when we are dust....

josh

 

I'm basing this off my old fitness/body building days when I worked at a gym as a trainer. The square bars from certain exercise machines would always bend where the round ones would always stay perfectly in tact. Then in physics class we discussed why round bars are stronger than square ones based off of my observations at the gym.

I wish I still had all my old notes that I took from the class because I had a whole diagram set up in CAD showing how square bars bend VS round bars. Hmmm... I bet I still have them on my old, old CPU... I'll see if I can dig that stuff up tonight since I need to access that old piece of junk anyway to get old MP3's off of it. It's an interesting read and I was surprised as well.


Even still. I don't think it would really matter with a bike rack since you're not putting too much of a load on them.

 

funny, when i got my thule rack from sports rack outfitters, i asked the sales guy whether i should get thule or yakima and he responded by asking me what i liked better, coke or pepsi.

i decided on thule because of the ski attachments. thule has ski attachments that can slide out. yakima didn't have ski attachments that did that. maybe they do now. since i'm a short guy, having the sliding ski attachments makes things easier for me to load and unload skis onto the rack.

 

A round shape is immensely strong for its weight. The walls of a square tube are generally thicker because they need to be. A square tube will resist torsion more effectively, torsion being a twisting motion. A square tube will bend more readily because of its planar surfaces.

I'm pretty sure that a round tube will support more force when suspended between two points.

 

Yakima!!! Hahha idk I just like the black bars on my car insted of the thule setups

 

Yakima!!

 

Have any of your guys ever even played with these bars? Even the shortest (~48") round bars are extremely flexible. It's truly foolish to debate the strength of these bars anyway, when the true limiting factor is the roof it's self. Any of the major weight bearing accessories like a box or basket mount so close to the towers that there is very little leverage on the bar anyway.