Delivery soon - trailer hitch for bikes?

[ksf]

Been lurking for a while now and am about to take delivery of a 2008 X5. I had planned on getting a trailer hitch installed for the sole purpose of carrying my bikes on my hitch-mounted bike rack. After seeing the pictures of the install, it strikes me a quite ugly (never seen it in person though). Does anyone know of an easy solution to carrying bikes on the 2008 X5 other than the hitch-mount? Is there a 'trunk mount' available? Thanks - and hi to the forum. KSF

[Denalio]

There is a rack for the roof or you could go with a Thule or Yakima.

[golfer4life]

The Yakima system works great with the existing factory roof rails. I've been using Yakima bike and ski roof racks for the longest time and they're great. The bikes are not that hard to mount on the roof, they are secured and never rattle unlike the hitch mount and they look great. The attached pics shows my Yakima crossbar installed.

[X5_2_OBX]

Golfer, we had the same setup for our cartop carrier on our Suburban- so glad to see it works on the X5 as well!

We're with the OP on this one, though- we have a hitch mounted bike rack and can not justify cutting the bumper for a hitch. A roof mounted rack won't work since my mother would be the one putting the bikes up/taking them down. I guess we will just have to wait and hope for something else to come along.

[Mabuhay]

Originally Posted by golfer4life

The Yakima system works great with the existing factory roof rails. I've been using Yakima bike and ski roof racks for the longest time and they're great. The bikes are not that hard to mount on the roof, they are secured and never rattle unlike the hitch mount and they look great. The attached pics shows my Yakima crossbar installed.

Could you let me know how long your bars are? Someone is selling his used set. His bars are 50 inches long. So I don't want to get it if it will not fit. Thanks!!!