Fitting Yakima RocketBox 12 and HighRoad Bike Rack on 48 Inch Roof Rack on 2003 Mazda Protege5  

Question:

Helpful Expert Reply:

Since the Yakima HighRoad # Y02114 is compatible with round crossbars, the bike rack will fit just fine for you. However, I have my doubts about using both the box and the bike carrier as things are configured now.

The bars provide 48 inches of width to work with. The box is 36 inches wide, and the bike rack will take about another 12 inches. The roof rack feet take up a total of 4 inches, two per side, this adds up to 52 inches. If you went with longer 58 inch crossbars, like the # Y00409, everything would fit just fine. You could even trim off any extra length that's not needed.

This being said, your ability to do this will depend on how heavy the cargo in the box will be and how much the bike weighs. If your Yakima roof rack uses the Q-clips that connect to the inside top of the door frames, your roof rack capacity is limited to 100 lbs. This means that the RocketBox, its cargo, the bike HighRoller bike rack and the weight of the bike all must come in under 100 lbs. If you exceed that limit, the rack could fail and that would be bad. The RocketBox weighs about 35 or so lbs, and the HighRoller weighs about 18, which adds up to about 50 lbs. This leaves you with only about 50 lbs or so for cargo in the box and the weight of the bike, which might not be enough.

If your roof rack uses the fixed mounting points on the roof that allow the rack to bolt directly to it, your capacity goes up to 165 lbs, which should be plenty unless you're using the cargo box to tote your anvil collection around.

expert reply by: Mike L

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