and then what happened

Date: 2007.06.25 | Category: Worth Reading Again, vacation | Tags:

There is a risk of forgetting how painful my experience was with my brand new bike rack with each passing day, here is what happened:

Saturday morning Zoe and I took the dogs to the boarding kennel while my husband loaded the car. When we arrived home he was almost done putting the bike rack on the trunk of my Honda Hybrid. It was a brand new, fresh out of the box, Saris Bones 3 bike rack and it was supposed to be a piece of cake.

There are 6 straps that secure the rack to the trunk, and he said to me, “I sure hope this is secure enough,” which I took as an open invitation for “why don’t you give it a try for awhile.”

That was not what he meant.

And I found that out when I started to monkey around with the straps and opened the trunk while it was connected, which is NOT the thing to do because it just means that you have to start all over again.

After about an hour of re-setting up the bike rack and then tightening and readjusting we finally were ready to put the bikes on it. The instruction sheet wasn’t that great, and we’d never done this before, and it was hot in the garage, and he was fuming mad at me for opening the trunk after he had the rack attached (Rightfully so, but I had no idea that you installed it on a closed trunk). We were both so pissed off that if a cheery person would have walked up the driveway to say hello, they’d have gotten their heads bitten off within seconds.

We got the bikes on, got into the car, and headed towards Door County. It wasn’t until about an hour into the drive when I found the line in the instructions that said to tie off the straps at the clamps. So we tightened the straps and then tied them off. This didn’t stop me from worrying about the bikes falling off the back of the car for the rest of the drive. I had visions of them sliding onto the Interstate and then causing a huge accident.

They didn’t. We arrived without incident.

On the way home we had no problems getting the rack on the trunk, nor did we have any problems getting the bikes on there either. Everything was tight and secure, and then we pulled over in Sheboygan to fill up for gas. My husband accidentally popped the trunk instead of pressing down the lever to open the door to the gas cap.

Oh shit. 

At first we tried to just undo the straps to the bike rack to shut the trunk, but that didn’t work. So then my husband stood there and held the bike rack with all three bikes on it while I tried to shut the trunk, but it wouldn’t shut. Finally he had to put the bikes down and I had to balance them while they were still attached to the rack.

While I did that, he and a kind gentleman determined that the latch to the trunk was broken and that was the reason it wasn’t closing. A third man came over to offer his help and it turned out that he had rope in truck that he could use to tie our trunk shut, then they put the bike rack back on the trunk and we set about to tighten and tie all the straps again.

We had to drive home for the last hour like that. I was already worried that the bikes were going to fall right off the trunk to begin with, and now the trunk was broken. It was not good, and I was anxious mess.

I freaking hate that bike rack.

And it cost me $95 to get a new latch for my trunk too.

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