Bye Bye Bike

Sorry to hear about your bike and car. My mechanic did the exact same thing last week. It's fairly common. The solution is a rear mounted rack. I use a SoftRide and like it. Most cars can be fitted with after market receivers. Here's a link that I use. Can't tell you about insurance, but you'd think that your home owners or car insurance should cover it. Good luck!

Scott

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Dude!

People should get themselves an orange traffic cone and put it in their parking spot so they cannot pull in without getting out of the car and removing it. It sounds a little lame, but it works.

Dude, my heart breaks for you! I can't tell you how many stupid things I've done and believe me when I say I feel your pain. My insurance guy assured me my bike was covered under my policy with out a separate coverage plan for it so give yours a call. Hope your deductable isn't too bad and look at it this way, you can upgrade😄

REALLY sorry to hear that. However, if I were you i'd definately get another roof rack. You've learned your lesson well, and now every time you approach a low area your subconscious will shudder. Imagine how chocked off you'd be if you bought a tow-hitch mounted rack, and then some tard ran up your [censored] at a traffic light! It happens, often!

gm

The bummer about this is that I'm normally VERY careful about this. I recently got a bike locker at work, and was bringing my bike home for the weekend (I have fridays off). I can see my other bikes where I park and that's normally a warning sign to me. I just spaced this one time. I'm call my insurance agent as soon as they open (3 hrs from now). I'll keep everyone posted.

L

PS, I'll be posting carnage pics too! 😄

Maybe it's a reminder to the rest of us, that answering the phone whilst driving MAY be hazardous...

gm

Bro Deal said:

People should get themselves an orange traffic cone and put it in their parking spot so they cannot pull in without getting out of the car and removing it. It sounds a little lame, but it works.

Note to self: Buy Orange Traffic Cone!!!!

Another good tip I've gotten (too late) is to put the garage door opener in the back seat or somewhere else where you have to get out of your car to open the garage....

Ok, Here are the carnage photos as promised...

Woah, I woudn't have thought the frame would tear that way.

Man, that sux. I feel for you and really hate to see any bike in that condition, even Specialized! My garage is too cluttered for my car to fit so it never goes in. However I will have to print out the original post and pictures. This is a great excuse for the next time that the wife wants me to clean out the garage on a beautiful riding day.

Just say no to roof racks.

Why people put something worth a couple of grand on TOP of their car is beyond me. Aside from the aero issues, having it flop off your roof (seen it too many times) and possibly running into your house, what happens if you need to stop off at the store? You want to leave a valuable piece of equipment available to get pilfered? You'd be surprised how easily a bike can be quickly broken down and put in a car. I have no problems carry any of my bikes in a small Honda Civic.

Lonnie Utah said:

Destroyed my road bike today. Roof rack vs Garage. F'ed up the top of my car, destroyed the rack. The whole way home, I was like "Your bike is on your car, your bike is on your car." As I turned the the cul-de-sac , the wife called to tell me she had gotten the screw replaced in her sunglasses for free. Totally threw me off. the frame to totally whacked, front fork wasted. The drive train seems to be OK, scuffed up the rubber boots on the shifters, and I'm not sure what else at this point. Broke the factory rack on my car, so I've got that to deal with too.

I'm sure folks here have done this. Did you deal with your insurance company? How'd that go? Any other advice?

There have been several discussions of this topic on various other forums. I am not in the insurance industry, but my interpretation of what I have read is the following:
1. Your car damage can be claimed under any collision coverage that you have on the vehicle--subject to the deductible and with the proviso that it will be an at fault (your fault) collision claim that will probably increase your rates. If the damage is less than $1000 or so to the car, then you may want to forgo a claim and eat it yourself.
2. The bike may be covered under your homeowners insurance, depending on the terms of your policy--again subject to deductible. I would suspect that almost all of your bike components are fine, since it looks like the frame and fork is what took the brunt of the impact so the actual replacement cost of that Felt frame may be less than most home policy deductibles or if not less, not much more--again probably not worth a claim.

Tough loss!

gravelmuncher said:

... You've learned your lesson well, and now every time you approach a low area your subconscious will shudder. gm

He's learned his lesson... maybe. I've run into my garage door opening TWICE with my rocket box on top of my Suburban! Luckily, the rocket box is very resilient (bends, but snaps back w/ very little scuffing or permanent deformation, the damage to the opening is minimal (paint touch up) and Rocket Box cracks are fairly easy to fix with duct tape (I use black).

gravelmuncher said:

... Imagine how chocked off you'd be if you bought a tow-hitch mounted rack, and then some tard ran up your [censored] at a traffic light! It happens, often!gm

People run into the rear end of cars at stop lights "often"? You live in the wrong place. I don't believe I, nor anyone at my family, has been rear ended at a stop light, and we have a hundred years of combined driving experience. I personally believe a rear rack is much safer and more convenient than a roof rack for most people.

Camilo said:

People run into the rear end of cars at stop lights "often"? You live in the wrong place. I don't believe I, nor anyone at my family, has been rear ended at a stop light, and we have a hundred years of combined driving experience. I personally believe a rear rack is much safer and more convenient than a roof rack for most people.

Never been rear-ended? Lucky you! In fact the very first time I was rear-ended was 25 years ago and the driver was an off duty policeman. I've been popped 3 times in 5 years. Fortunately when you rear-end an F150 with a big ole trailer hitch most of the damage is to the vehicle behind me.

Insurance is often tricky. Had a mate who was T-boned and the insurance company initially only wanted to give him a new frame with the assumption that the parts could be re-used. Fortunately one of our teammates is an attorney and got him a much better settlement and I got the leftover parts for my beater bike build.

Camilo said:

People run into the rear end of cars at stop lights "often"? You live in the wrong place. I don't believe I, nor anyone at my family, has been rear ended at a stop light, and we have a hundred years of combined driving experience. I personally believe a rear rack is much safer and more convenient than a roof rack for most people.

I guess I live in the wrong place too as I have been rear-ended four times in 32 years. Luckily only one resulted in my car being totaled, but each one was sufficient to destroy a bike frame.

Camilo said:

People run into the rear end of cars at stop lights "often"? You live in the wrong place. I don't believe I, nor anyone at my family, has been rear ended at a stop light, and we have a hundred years of combined driving experience. I personally believe a rear rack is much safer and more convenient than a roof rack for most people.

Dunno about often, well heck its happened twice in about 5 years, so maybe I can say often. I was rear ended at a light - first nice spring day of the year, light was green, but people were waiting to turn left (only 1 lane) and the person behind me was spacing it... second time husband stopped so as to not run over person in a crosswalk, car behind us spaced it, ran into us.... I guess that's not really at a light, but still 2 rear endings that would have damaged bikes.
Fortunately we don't have a rear bike rack. We do put ours on the roof - we need to take four bikes and lots of gear to stage races with us, so inside the car isn't always an option.(when I'm by myself I do fold down the seats and pop it in the trunk - I'm so little I don't even have to remove the front wheel...) We don't have a garage though so no worries about driving into it - just have to be careful about other places we might stop on the way. I like the cone idea though - I've also heard of hanging a sign that says bikes from the bottom of the garage door so that you have to see it when the door is up.

Bummer about the bike - thats some nasty damage.

I've been rear-ended three times. Once years ago when I'm sitting at a red light in my old Triumph. It's snowing out, and slippery, and I see car headlights coming up on me too fast. So I try to go through the red to get out of the way. I had time to get moving a bit, but the car hits me anyway - hard enough to push my flimsy bumper in a couple of inches. I get out of the car, and see that it's a cop that hit me! (I'm thinking to myself - Oh boy! Somehow this is going to be my fault!). I went easy on the city by just having my bumper straightened (those old Triumph bumpers bend pretty easy), albeit not perfectly, instead of holding out for a full replacement bumper.

Second and third times I'm in my Ford Expedition, just sitting at a stop light, when cars behind me can't stop in time and smack into me. But in both cases the score was Expedition 2, other cars 0. (Both other cars had non-trivial front-end damage, Expedition rear bumper was not even blemished.) A bike on the back would have been toast, though.

capwater said:

Just say no to roof racks.

Why people put something worth a couple of grand on TOP of their car is beyond me. Aside from the aero issues, having it flop off your roof (seen it too many times) and possibly running into your house, what happens if you need to stop off at the store? You want to leave a valuable piece of equipment available to get pilfered? You'd be surprised how easily a bike can be quickly broken down and put in a car. I have no problems carry any of my bikes in a small Honda Civic.

YES YES!!!

I never understood why people use them... I think it is an image thing. I have a VW Golf, and fit both my TT and road bike in the back by laying the seat down and taking off the front wheels (and I am 6'4" with my seat all the way back and big bikes!)... every time I see a SUV on the way to the race with a lone driver and the bike on the roof I can't help but think "what a [censored]".

I guess if your bike is a department store bike you don't care about it being exposed to road grit or being stolen while in a restaurant/hotel/whatever, great, but why spend $300 for a rack with a $300 bike... not to mention the horrible hit in fuel economy... except for teams or fully loaded cars, roof racks seem not only dumb, but environmentally irresponsible to me.

Not a slam intended towards you Lonnie or anyone else, just a general rant... I know most people use them (I used to, and still do when I transport my tandem)... just wish more people would realize there are many better options out there.

Sorry to hear about your bike Lonnie... that happened to my girlfriend's brother in law (except his wife was driving, not him) so he got a new, better bike out of it (not sure if it was insurance money, or guilt free purchase on his part or both), but perhaps that could be the silver lining in this cloud for you.
😉