How fast can I go with a roof rack?

[Bertie]

Hey guys,
I bought a soft rack from DaKine a few months ago, which is awesome and has paid for itself many times over. I'm not worried about the boards going anywhere but does anyone know how fast I can drive with them on? I don't want to damage the boards by putting too much wind pressure on the nose so I tend to stick below 70mph. But this means adding about an hour to the journey. Does anyone know for sure?

[Laguna]

Hey, I dont know how fast you can go but I wouldnt advise you to go over 70mph, with mine I average around 50mph and it makes this loud buzzing noise, it can put some dents in your car roof when the boards vibrate against it, so be careful.

[kitesurfer]

Correct me if i'm wrong but isn't 70mph the national speed limit in the uk and you shouldn't be going faster than that anyway?

[PapaW]

As lon as they are secured corrrectly you can gone up to the speed limit no problems.
It will cane your fuel consumption though. With softracks air can't pass beneath them and are there for not perticully aerodynamic...

[Xr3i_alloys]

I don't want to damage the boards by putting too much wind pressure on the nose

Dude your board is backwards

[drowningbitbybit]

I don't want to damage the boards by putting too much wind pressure on the nose so I tend to stick below 70mph.

Wind pressure will never damage a board - its nothing compared to the pasting a board gets in the water

The things you need to watch out for are the board vibrating (that will crack it) and, most importantly, stuff being thrown off the road by cars in front. 70mph stones will really ding your board

So make sure the boards are in a bag, are tied down real tight, and dont tail-gate other cars (...but thats sensible anyway....)

Travelled 200 miles at, um, 'over' 70mph many times without any problems

[fletcher]

Would definately try and stay under 70mph

[bluesnowcone]

Best answer is buy a camper, they dont realy go over 70 anyway unles you change the engin. With a camper just shove your boards in the bak go as fats as you want, well either a camper of an estate car.

[Laguna]

Best answer is buy a camper, they dont realy go over 70 anyway unles you change the engin. With a camper just shove your boards in the bak go as fats as you want, well either a camper of an estate car.

lol, If it was that simple, we would all have campers

[Brent]

Bertie; if you personal message me I'll e you a photo of how I use mine. I use soft racks on an mx-5 convertable, have safely used them with three boards (including a 7' mini-mal. True. Got a few tricks about setting them up as you put boards on.
I put the front rack over the top of the windscreen (across the top of the a pillar), and the rear rack right back as far as I can.

High school physics here; have the racks as far apart as possible,(more structurally sound & spreads the load) the front rack is the critical one and needs to be very tightly tied. The rear is only really to keep the boards facing ahead. load the boards on making sure then are fully forward within the board bags so there is no flapping in the wind at the front. (fins to the rear also), after about 10 kms stop and retighten the front rack.

The key trick I do is this; I have a thin black nylon cord about 12 feet long I use, I tie this around the front tow-hook on the car, I run it over the bonnet up to the front of the boards, I loosly tie a hoop around the boards ahead of the front rack, and then pull it tight and wrap it around the rear rack...and tie it tight.

This acts like a secondary safety thing it holds the boards down from the very front and stops them lofting at motorway speeds. Especially when trucks go past travelling in the opposite direction.

make sense? & pm me if you want an image; same with anybody else interested.

[Bertie]

Thanks so much you guys, you've been a great help. If anyone has a camper they would like to part with for much less than its actuall value that would be awesome Untill then my FordKa will have to do.