What’s wrong with this picture?
I knew it would happen eventually…I’m kind of surprised it took this long. And I tempted fate to take a swat at me by titling my last post “The Mighty Sherpa”. Umm…you may have noticed from the picture that the fork on my bike is bent. This is what happens when you try to drive into a carport with a bike mounted on the roof rack of your car. Many bad words were spoken today 
My car is scratched up and dinged a bit, but nothing too major. The roof rack mounts have seen better days…I don’t think they will be salvageable. No major damage to the bike, other than the fork (thank goodness that the front wheel was safely inside the car—not sure I could have handled losing one of my beautiful new wheels as well). Just when I thought I would get a break from bike construction, I have to start shopping for a fork.
I had this great scheme to make sure something like this never happened—whenever I left the house with a bike on top of the car, I would place an orange traffic cone at the front of the carport to remind me not to drive under it. It seemed a great plan…until I thwarted it by loading the bike on the car somewhere besides my house. Even as close as 4-5 blocks away, I had reminded myself not to drive under the deck. That’s Mr. Short Term Memory for you…
P.S. Cindy’s bike is done, and working great, with all shiny new parts on it. I’m not allowed to touch it ever again.
Posted by Matthew on September 17th, 2006 | Filed under: Pre-trip Planning
Ouch! You are not alone in this…I drove into a parking garage with two bikes on my car…which ripped the rack, bikes and all off the top of the car. It was weird to unlock them while they were dangling. My solution? A clothes pin which I put on my rearview mirror on which I wrote “BIKES”. Just for those times when I have bikes on the car and I am not doing my usual routine!