Roof Bars for the Passat

Now that the Passat has proved its worth, we need to fix some roof bars to it so we can carry all our bikes.

Roof Bars

The car is a '96 N, and has roof rails. However, we don't know whether the rail-mount bars you can buy will work for our Passat. The two Thule fittings (the 750 non-rail design has the hook part; the 755 rail design has no hook) are pictured here, and are £80 - £100 per pair.

Apparently the Thule system comprises three parts for a complete roofrack, and for our Passat these are:-

• 750 Rapid Fit foot pack
• 761 Square bars (120cm)
• 1057 Rapid Fit System fitting kit (Thule's Instructions Here)

The cheapest places we've found online for these parts were:

• roofracks.co.uk, at £91.40 inc postage
• roofbox.co.uk was virtually the same price.
• autow.co.uk came to £90 with free delivery.

The Halfords store in Norwich wanted around £110 for these parts.

Cycle Carriers

What we actually need is a tandem bike carrier. Members of the Tandem Club reccommend Pendle bars, in two versions:

• the PENDLE T-Bar Tandem Rack which requires front wheel removal
• the Pendle Tandem Rack - "keep both wheels on"

Both these racks are priced at £150 or so, so not cheap. EBay UK also drew a blank, so quite a specialist item.

Tweet

Comments

It's quiet in here...Add your comment