rack stories

[runethechamp]

In early January 1998 I took a road trip to Utah with a stupid magnetic rack on my roof. On the way back, the rack with my skis flew off and I didn't even notice until I was 1 hour outside SLC. I turned around, went all the way into the city and out again, but the skis were lost. Got the money back on my insurance though

[Cat Jockey]

As gyptian mentioned, any kayaker has a million 'boats falling off racks' stories

Not a million, but one that really sticks out. I'll spare the details that led up to the incident but the result is one forever lost Wavesport Z. Fuggin' Yakima POS.

[MacDaddy]

No, there is no such thing.

You sound a bit like the 40-year-old virgin when it comes to boobies: "Yea, they felt like bags of sand...I love those!"

Not quite 40!! haha

1000 to 1 you cant hold a candle to my CK!

I some how feel better for typing that...I'm sorry! I didnt mean to pick on you.

Now back to the rack stories.

[Xover]

this thread is useless without pix

and .. i don't mean pix of a thule or yak getting ripped off a roof

[ak_powder_monkey]

I had a motor mount lashed to a shitty rubber raft rip off the raft and sing in the wind at uber high speeds on its one remaining rope then crash into the window of my moms van that sucked.

[cloudpeak]

1. Our friend's wife doesn't like kayaking. They buy a new car, and he offers to drive to the river. Before we leave, our friend tells us at length about the strength of his new tie down ropes. We have a great day on the river, tie the boats on, get in the car, and our friend starts moving. Seconds later, we hear a big thump. We forgot to secure the awesomely strong front tie down, and it wraps around the car's axle. The bars on the rack bend, and the boats smashes down on the car's roof. As his probably final trip on the river passes before his eyes, the last words from our friend are, "We just bought this car. What do you think I should I tell my wife?"

2. Another friend buys a kayak for his wife, who doesn't really like boating either. He lends his wife's boat to another friend because his wife isn't using it anyway. They have to cross the Golden Gate Bridge, and as they're at the halfway point on the bridge, they look in the rear view mirror and see the boat flying off the car. An 18-wheeler behind them runs over the boat with every set of its wheels. When he gets home, our friend comments to his wife, "Sorry about the boat." She doesn't mind.

3. We were returning from a great fall ride on the bikes. I had put an arrow on the windshield that was secured by a suction cup. It pointed up to remind me that I had bikes on the car. Because we had just remodeled the house, I wanted to be extra careful. As we drove up to the house, I pushed the button on the remote control, the door opened, and I drove forward. The opening in the garage door began to crumble as I hit the brakes a few seconds too late. The bars on the rack bent, the bikes suffered only scratches, and I called the contractor. "Er, I need to have a little additional work done on the garage."

[mr_gyptian]

Indeed.

So here it is, February 1976 cruising from Omak on the way to Mardi Gras in our beat to shit Dodge van. We leave my buddy's parents' house in LA having picked the avocado tree bare and head east. Out in the California desert on some freeway we find ourselves behind a big pickup with a full size camper on the back cruising about 70mph. As we watch it seems that the camper is wobbling a bit. Shortly after that it seems to be lifting up and dropping back. Then it took off in full flight off the back of the truck. Time slowed as this flying tin can aimed itself at us. Rabbit hit the brakes and swerved over a lane and it hit the ground and completely shattered. Chunks of camper, pillows and lots of other stuff spread all over the place. Turns out that they had just bought it and the dealer had forgotten to secure the tie-downs. Ouch.
OK, it wasn't a rack story, or a rack story but....

hey, that was when rear wheel drive vehicles still made it to the slopes, right?

[Tippster]

[skiing-in-jackson]

In my younger, more wild days... I worked on the Snake River as a shuttle driver...the guy I worked for made a Marine Corps drill sargent look like a pussy cat. He was what I needed at that stage of my life.

In any event, we all were so scared of this guy that we all did everything perfectly- all the time. We triple checked everything and made sure everything was tied down.

This moved over to my life off the river..I border on paranoid when I put stff on the racks- but haven't lost a thing...ever...

With parahoia comes security

[Kya]

My best rack story was when I was a little kid, my babysitter was going.....

Wierd. I thought you were going in a totally different direction here.

[PaSucks]

I once left my gloves on the roof of my car when I drove home from Seven Springs. When I got home, one of them was still there, dangling from the the rack. It made it the whole way home at about 80 mph without falling off.

[Jim S]

Head out on a gorgeous day with my younger son and three pairs of skis on the roof in
addition to his snowboard. (Yes, I'm a pig). So my younger son wants to be dropped off
at the main lodge and I oblige. I drive up to the unloading area, remove his snowboard, send
him on his way. Then I peel away to go park at another area where I can have the car
about 20 feet from the lift.

I haul ass and make a sharp turn, hear a clunking sound, which I imagine is my ski boots bouncing
around in the rear compartment. Wrong. The ski rack wasn't secured so guess what went flying
onto the roadside...YARD SALE!



Anyway, the day was fine after the yard sale. I took my 11 year old son on
his first bc/off piste hike. I was carrying my skis and his 'board.

[iceman]

I heard from a source that a certain maggot lost a pair of bros in a pmgear bag the other day at 80 mph on the Washington Capitol Beltway but the skis were fine. Not sure about the bag though. Still, that's like a pmgear ad come true.

[igBand]

Not quite a rack, but...

We were our way up to the penobscot in maine and pulled off the road at a turnout to switch drivers. Just as we got out of the car, a pickup towing a trialer comes screaming by us. On the trailer was an outhouse, which the wind caught a hold of, lifted roughly 15 feet or so up into the air, and the deposited smack-dab into the middle of the 2-lane highway. No flying poop, but damn, did that thing literally bust into a million pieces.

I'm still convinced that video footage of the event would have won us the $10K on america's home videos.

[workinforturns]

my friend and i got done one day and she put her snowboard on but my skis would not also fit on the rack so i put them in the back and folded down the seat. were driving along and we heard an increasing vibration and then a big VOOOOOOM. i look back and se the snowboard thrash into the groad at mach 12 and a car swerves out of the way. i start laughing hysterically of course and tell her to turn around.

[mday]

I'm caravaning back from Tahoe with some friends in another car. I didn't have a rack that fit my MGB, so I had my skis on my friends rack. At about 75 MPH, I see the rack on a car a couple of hundred yards ahead slowly lift off the roof and flip through the air. I was laughing out loud (totally bad karma) until I recognized *my* skis as I drove by. I pulled over just in time to see a semi make a sweet move to barely avoid crushing the rack under all 18 wheels. After I dragged the rack to the side of the freeway, I saw that the skis were amazingly unharmed. Just one small scratch on my trusty Rossi FPs. It turns out that the rack still had a grip on the chrome rain gutters, which had been completely ripped off of the top of my friends car (a 1978 Monza, and why he didn't buy an equally attractive Vega or Gremlin, I'll never know).

[bio-smear]

... noticed the shadow on the concrete wall of my ski racks up. I immediately pulled over. Not sure why, but the skis were still on there. I considered myself very lucky to drive 45 minutes on a windy road, and not have them fall off.

I think there is something to be said for keeping the square rubber sandwich tubing that clamps down on your skis CLEAN. I routinely wipe mine down so there isn't any dirt or dust on the surface, which can reduce friction. Think about how tacky rubber on a clean ski topsheet can be. I think that if you did leave your racks open, you'd stand a better chance of retaining the skis purely on sticky rubber friction if they were clean and tacky.

As for forgetting the bikes are up and driving into the garage... I made a little red sign with a bike on it that i attach to the rear view when they're up top. It kinda helps, but I still forget. I think a better method is to put a red magnetic sign on the garage door that says "don't pull in here, jackass."

[BigDaddy]

This is kind of a rack story... Friday of Presidents Day Weekend there was wind like never before in Vermont. (I heard there were gusts of 140mph!) A sixty foot pine tree blew down crashing right on top of my new $4k trailer! I went up yesterday to cut it off and inspect the damage... The front aluminum rack took the brunt of the impact and was ruined, but never came off the rain gutters. All that happened to the trailer was it made a small hole (2" dia) and slightly dented the roof. I'm amazed it wasn't crushed and happy because my agent informed it wasn't insured for "tree damage"!

I could of saved a few hundred bucks and gotten the Pace trailer at Home Depot, but the construction and materials were not the same! Buy from anywhere else!

PS- There are much better "rack stories" but they're on other web sites!