hey folks Just got my E and I love it...however I found the honda interior
bike rack a bit pricee for what you get...I am in the process of developing
a two bike holder, with easy install and uninstall process...
....will keep you all posted...have prototype
made just needs some mods...any intrest or thoughts would be great...what do you folks like or want it to do...pics to come soon...
its almost done now hopefully this week and pics to follow...
gotta love the E..Nov. 8,2003 :wink:

I'd be interested to see what you come up with. You're right...the factory bike holder is way overpriced compared to aftermarket pieces which are similar(Saris), and won't even work with bikes with disc brakes.

I'm not sure if you have any bikes that have disc brakes but it would be nice if the mount would allow the fork to be held high enough for the caliper to clear with no problems. Or even better, a way to secure the bikes nicely without taking the wheels off.

Thanks!
Steve

My wife and I just made an interior bike rack for our element. We took the removable rear floor out and laid it flat on a piece of osb plywood. (should have used regular plywood but I already had a piece of OSB!) We traced it flooring with a pencil. Then cut the wood out with a jig saw. Then we placed a piece of rope across the hole in the vehicle before placing the wood in to check for fit. the rope allows you to hold the ends and lift the board back out. If you cut it just right, your hand will not be able to get underneath to lift out. After finding that we cout it correctly on the first try!, we put our bikes in mounted to the bike fork holders bought from our local bike shop. We then marked the holes, removed everything from vehicle and drilled out the holes for the bolts. Use carriage bolts so that they fit almost flush. Reinstall the new floor, install bikes and away you go. The only down side is finding a place for the front wheels. We are still working on the best ways to do this without them sliding around. If anyone is interested we'll take pics and upload.

Best wishes,

konaken

We originally mounted two Yakima fork mounts to the removable rear floor panel with carriage bolts and lock nuts, but we found the plastic flexed too much. We replaced it with a piece of aluminum diamond plate intended for fire trucks. I put high density adhesive-backed insulation foam around the edges to keep it quiet.

The bikes now ride very stable and the Yakima mounts handle disk brakes just fine. (A lot of people assume the aluminum floor came standard in the Element;) When we have to haul something heavy enough that it might be difficult to get over the bike mounts, we just put the OEM floor back in.

As for the front wheels, we got small bungee cords with T and loop ends from a marine supply store and strap them around the rim and top tubes. It would be nice to leave the front wheels on, but long experience has shown me that the most stable way to carry bikes is with fork mounts.

Yo bunjinjohn!

Where'd you get an aluminum plate that would fit the rear panel above the spare tire well? That would look absolutely great in the E.

You can but quick releases from performancebike.com for $10 ea. and mount them exactly how Honda recommends and save a ton. Or mount them to a plank for removability.

But I've got a length of 2x4 that I mounted two fork mounts and two wheel holders on...this was originally for my pickup, but it fits in the E just fine. Fork mounts are like 10 buck each and the fork mounts I got at a garage sale for $5/pair...

jesse