On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 10:06:45 AM UTC-7, Bob wrote:
Hello,

Would appreciate any thoughts on.

Was about to get a Thule Rack for rear of my Outback.
But keep putting it off due my reluctance to drive with the major part,
if not all, of my rear visibility being blocked.

Re those roof mounted racks:

Any general thoughts on ?

*How popular are they ?

How hard, actually, to get the bikes on and off ?

Safe ?

Pros and cons ?

Thanks, appreciate the help,
Bob

The hardest to find and most important part of a roof rack is the brackets. These are normally specialized for the specific car you own. If these do not fit properly they can damage your car or more often have a slight space below part of them that whistles like a train audible from inside.

The cross bars on Yakima are round and on the Thule they are square - no effective difference and most of the upper components fit on both.

The fork mounts work very well through if you have three mounts and a wider or tall car it's difficult to use the center rear facing one.

Personally I do not like the upright mounts. While they seem to work OK my experience with them is that the bike often will rock back and forth.