Anyone made a Kamm back extension around a hitch mount bike rack?

[christofoo]

I have a trunk mounted bike rack - pretty similar form factor to the hitch mount, just different attachment method to the car.

You definitely will get considerably better mileage with the bike on the tail than with the bike on top, even if you don't do a Kammback.

Are you sure you want the Kammback mounted on the rack? I think either car could have a Kammback mounted to the car as a separate item. For the hatchback, the bike probably won't even affect drag, and on the sedan it's probably a pretty small contribution, since it does stick out of the wake a little, but really not very much (the wake on sedans, excluding about the last 5 years of production, is a few inches above the trunk lid, I think). Of course the Kammback provides its own benefit in either case.

If you want it all on the rack you'd have to design it (with plenty of folks here ready to look at your ideas and give you pointers).

[Piwoslaw]

I'll just brutally resurrect this long-necroed thread.

When our 3 person family travels, we fit the bikes inside the car to minimize aero drag:

But this configuration is quite demanding on time/ease of packing and unpacking, and while travelling we would like to sometimes quickly have access to the bikes for a short ride, but resign from this due to the hassle.

We do not want the fuel penalty of a roof rack, so most likely I will invest in a hitch and then a hitch-mounted bike rack. But I am afraid that even then the parts of the bike sticking out the sides (and possibly the top) will mess up the aero
This pic that freebeard posted:

and this random pic:

only confirm my doubts

So back to the original question: Can the bikes be made to fit:

1. inside of the wake of the rear of our stationwagon?
2. inside of the reduced wake of a Kammback?

Or is hiding the frame in the wake, but still getting the penalty of the wheels sticking out on the sides, the best compromise I can expect?

Two thoughts I had were:

1. a rack where the bikes are oriented in forward direction. This would be very long, and hitch-mounted racks cannot extend more than 1 meter, iirc, so out of the question.
2. taking off the wheels (maybe only front wheels) to make the bikes shorter and lower.

Any ideas, comments?

Or maybe in the years since this was originally posted someone has some practical experience?

[freebeard]

Thanks for the repost. That's the World's shortest stop sign. The car needs work and the bike is in pieces. Here's the earlier combo, with a roof rack:



And the Bug Bearer rack before I made custom bumper mounting brackets.



A folding bike hung wheels down on the rack would fit inside a Kammback.

It depends on the car, and depends on the bike. I cherry-picked an example article: flatbike.com/how-to-haul-bikes-with-a-car/

Number four:

4. The bike-friendly car.
Generally, we don’t buy an entire car just to carry a bike. Not explicitly, anyway. We buy a car that matches our lifestyle that includes biking, doing lots of fun outdoor stuff, and hauling all those things related to biking, after researching and verifying that our bikes fit.

So yeah, we’re really doing this–buying a $30K car as an accessory for a $2K bike.

Then they go on to making the bike fit the car.

[Piotrsko]

Expect that modern times have produced exceptions, I used a folding bike that was hand carry-able AKA: steyer puch "cobra" that was suitcase size folded. Have seen electric assist cargo bikes capable today that collapse to that size and it wouldn't take much to fair it into the turbulent area.