I wouldn't.
Roof rack. Or hitch carrier.

 

^^^^^^ What he said. Roof or Hitch Carrier. Rear hatch with straps are an invitation damage to vehicle as well as your bicycles.

 

Thank you both! I have a call into the dealership about getting a hitch installed. I'm too short for a roof rack!

 

If you value your bikes, get a hitch carrier!

 

A helpful supplement for a hitch carrier, especially for long trips with multiple bikes, is an added tie-down strap up around the hatch hinges. This will greatly reduce the bouncing of the cantilevered load. Obviously too much of a nuisance for a shorter slower trip though. There hasn't been any paint scuffing I've noticed.

 

Interesting, I've never had bouncing issues, but I use a tray style hitch mount, and I typically only carry road bikes so that may be why.

 

Possibly my situation has been exacerbated by having only a 1.25" hitch receiver and/or the springy-ness of my particular Thule (cheapest) bike rack. But on a trip of thousands of miles at freeway speeds (we went from PNW to RAGBRAI in Iowa) the strap was definitely a big improvement for only a minor added effort.

 

I'm not tall, either, at 5'8". I've found that a 13-inch folding step stool (amazon, $15) was all I needed to comfortably get my MTB up on, and down from, the roof.

 

I wasn't 100% sure, so I double checked the accessories brochure. All forester hitches are 2"

My dealer did mention they were having trouble sourcing the hitches and underbody protection, so the hitch may be a dealer install or deleted completely from my order.

 

View attachment 570256

I wasn't 100% sure, so I double checked the accessories brochure. All forester hitches are 2"

My dealer did mention they were having trouble sourcing the hitches and underbody protection, so the hitch may be a dealer install or deleted completely from my order.

View attachment 570256

I wasn't 100% sure, so I double checked the accessories brochure. All forester hitches are 2"

My dealer did mention they were having trouble sourcing the hitches and underbody protection, so the hitch may be a dealer install or deleted completely from my order.

Thanks, good information.

 

that's good news for SK Foresters. limiting us SJ owners to 1.25" receivers was paying too much attention to towing, and too little to bike racks, in my opinion.

 

You could get plenty of aftermarket 2" options on older foresters.

 

I just ordered a 22 Forester Touring and was told a 2" was available. One week later the sales guy calls me and says he "made a mistake" and only 1 1/4" is currently available for the Touring model. He offered to throw in a free Thule 2" adapter. I said no thanks because I have a 2" 1UpUsa rack to transport two heavy ebikes. I don't want any extra wobble that an adapter might create. So, looks like I will need an aftermarket add-on.

 

I just ordered a 22 Forester Touring and was told a 2" was available. One week later the sales guy calls me and says he "made a mistake" and only 1 1/4" is currently available for the Touring model.

This might just be a supply chain situation, where he really meant "only 1.25" is available right now"

 

I have a Saris Bones EX 3 that I use for 3 bikes. Probably have over 1,000 miles carrying them in the last 2 years with no issues on freeways or local bumpy michigan gravel roads.

 

As for wobble with 1.25" hitch receivers, I spent a careful hour, before a very long towing trip, adding just the right number of layers of transparent packing tape wrapped around the ball-mount tongue so that it still would just barely slide smoothly into the hitch receiver. You could do this to a bike rack, too. The clunkiness was reduced quite a bit.

 

Wouldn't a threaded locking hitch pin do the job in less time or am I misunderstanding the problem?

 

Threaded locking hitch pin is way better and faster. But you may still need to shim in the vertical direction. I’d shim instead of using those straps, or just leave it to wobble and tolerate the clunking on shorter trips. Shims can be made from anything lying around, like strips cut from a beverage can.

 

‘22 premium with Subaru 2” receiver, dealer installed. Availability can be hit or miss but works quite well with my Thule rack and 2 e bikes. Thule has anti wobble attachment which seems much more secure.