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Transport your LeMond with a LeMond Bike Rack?

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Lemond Sea Sucker Rack 4

If you’ve been looking for a bike rack that is as flashy as it is functional, or want a LeMond branded bike rack to compliment your new Limited Edition LeMond bicycle, there are two new bike racks you should check out. After meeting during the Everyone Rides event for the Boys & Girls clubs in Florida, LeMond and SeaSucker have partnered up to offer two special LeMond Edition SeaSucker racks.

Emblazoned with the color of the Maillot Jaune and LeMond’s name, other than the finish the racks are no different than the standard SeaSuckers – which is to say that they are easy to install, portable, and hold fast.

Lemond Sea Sucker Rack 3

If you’re unfamiliar with SeaSucker’s racks, they accomplish what other roof mounted systems do, but with the power of suction cups. Not just any suction cups however, as the racks rely on marine grade vacuum cups which use a small built in pump to remove the air inside. The resulting hold is strong enough to withstand being mounted to the top of a stock car as it cruised around a track. Thanks to the suction cup design, the racks can be quickly installed and removed meaning you only need to keep the rack on when you’re using it, and it’s fairly portable as well.

Lemond Sea Sucker Rack 2

As part of their partnership with LeMond, SeaSucker has produced two LeMond branded racks with the single bike Talon, and double bike Mini Bomber.  Both racks are designed for 9mm QR dropouts, but can run thru axles with the aid of an adapter and include rear wheels straps. Sold for the same price as the standard black SeaSucker Racks, the yellow LeMond versions will sell for $270 for the single, and $400 for the double.

greglemond.com

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Tom
Tom
9 years ago

Fascinating concept. Two critical items:

Weight limit?

Impact on car’s paint?

Ed R
Ed R
9 years ago

You could use your Lemond bike rack to mount your Lemond trainer to your Google car and pretend your riding somewhere and when your done you’d actually be there!

RUSTYDOGG
RUSTYDOGG
9 years ago

Great idea. I’m just too paranoid to trust it with a high end bike.
I’m thinking its not such a great idea to mount it to the sunroof glass since the forces in the x,y,and z surely are more than it was designed for. A gusty side wind will make a roof mounted rack tray flex a lot. So now you start having sun roof leaks.

Devin
9 years ago

I too wonder about the unintentional consequences on your sunroof when it’s getting huge forces applied that it was never meant to seal against. Bummer to find your car flooded after a huge deluge cause you took your bike on a 30 mile freeway drive in heavy winds.

Chris
Chris
9 years ago

Fine as long as you stick them to a Sun/moon roof or other glass style roof – DO NOT use on the metal roof direct, leaves small round ring indentations in the metal!

mau
mau
9 years ago

I’ve been using it for a couple years before lemond branded it. The suction cups work excellent but treat them with the utmost care. Any cut on the suction cup ring can cause them to leak and loose suction. I usually wash the area on the window to remove dirt in order to improve suction. I’ve replaced two of my suction cups.

Jaime
Jaime
9 years ago

I own a mini bomber and at first I held the most common concern that seems to be attached to this rack…trust! Well I can tell you that this suction cups will hold your bike like is nothing. I have driven my car at 85 mph + on the highway with two bikes attached to it and that mini bomber did not even lose a pound of pressure. The are auctions cups similar to the ones that the use to mount glasses during construction of buildings and those glasses are considerably heavier that the heavier bike out there. They are also very portable and will fit right on you bike case if you are traveling. My sckeptism about the security of the bike is gone. These racks will hold no question about it.

PROEDGEBIKER.COM
9 years ago

@TOM, each 6″ vacuum cup has a 210lb hold power rating and SeaSucker Recommends bike weight of up to 45lbs per bike.
Virtually no impact on paint or sheet metal other than water rings left behind that if you clean your car will disappear.

Adam
Adam
9 years ago

Ive been using a Sea Sucker mini bomber for a few years now. They really suck in a good way. There is no way on earth it could get pulled from the roof and doesn’t leave any marks on the paint.

Mike
Mike
9 years ago

Devin, instead of being a naysayer why not ask those of us who have been using them for years. I have a Mazda CX-9 that has a sunroof and I’ve installed my mini bomber on my sunroof, back window and further back on the roof with ZERO issues. It is NOT neccissary to install it on sunroof, its optional. These racks are great and have never caused a bit of damage unlike the rear strap rack from another company when i lifted the back gate.. ouch. You OBVIOUSLY don’t speak from experience using these racks.
Chris, I have had no deflection of metal on my Mazda or my thin a** hybrid vehicle. I sometimes get a small water ring from where I wet the cup but it goes away with windex or the next rain. I can see maybe where perception comes into play but I’ve never had an issue. I had to replace two vacuum cups because of my negligence but not due to failure. If you have proof that their cups send a picture to Seasucker so they can see it…. I find it interesting that it didn’t damage the thin sheet metal on the race car that went 140 mph on YouTube ….
It’s great we live in a country where we have free speech and we are free to give our own opinions but listen to people who own their racks… I own a Devinci road bike, maybe its really an over weighted downhill bike with thin tires but unless you own one you won’t know will you?? If we listen to every naysayer out there we would never own a single bike product.

Dar B
Dar B
9 years ago

I have been using the talon and mini bomber for several year now with no adverse effect on the paint or leAks on my sun roof. Keep your cups clean and your clean. Sold my Thule racks roof mount
Best rack I have traveled with mounts to any rental i have ever had.

Dar

gabbia
gabbia
9 years ago

I have a Seasucker Mini Bomber. I ride around with almost 20k worth of bikes when loaded with race bikes on back of my vehicle so they’re out of the wind and not on the roof. The cool thing is I can tranfer the rack in about a minute(and that’s over estimating) to one of our other vehicles. We’ve saved money not having to buy racks for them too.
The coolest and most practicle racks out there bar none!

If you’re worried about the rack holding check out their race car video. You DON’T have to worry if the rack will hold, you have to worry if you car will do 140…

Devin
9 years ago

@Mike- dooood, chill. Not a personal attack on you or your rack choice. I fully stand behind my concern that these could cause sun roofs to leak if your bike sees heavy wind while driving. Also, I’m anti-fork mount racks as it’s putting a large amount of stress on your dropouts that aren’t designed for it. Before you say “it’s just like a wheel! lol!”-wrong, it’s just like holding your wheel in place and violently vibrating your bike left and right, placing all the force on the dropouts. I’m much more a fan of full bike racks- not to mention negating the need to remove wheels every time.

Yeah, I’ve got no experience with these; it sounds like you’ve had a good experience, nice to know.

Robert
Robert
9 years ago

I’ve been using the sea sucker for two years with a $10,000+ bike and have zero issues. That being said, I do check it every so often to me sure it still there! But I’ve had no issues and it’s been awesome!

Phil from SeaSucker
9 years ago

OK everyone……. I can see that there are some concerns here, and things might be getting a bit heated. So I will answer the questions and concerns from the factory side of things after I was asked to by LeMond.

1. You CAN mount our racks directly on the sun/moonroof without problems. One of the great things about our rack systems is that, unlike a traditional fork mount system, there IS some movement that can happen with your bike on the roof. The vacuum cups act at shock absorbers as well, and if you put your bike into our rack, you will see that you do have lateral movement to each side slightly to counter crosswinds. This reduces strain on your forks, and reduces the stresses put on your fork in areas such as cornering and crosswinds. And with multiple cups on our racks, all forces are distributed and dissipated evenly across the footprint of the rack. We have not received phone calls or emails regarding leaking or broken sunroofs as a result of using our products. The downside to putting them on the sunroof is that you cannot use the roof while you are driving with our racks on it, and I personally recommend placing the rack on the paint between the sunroof and your front windshield so you can enjoy the beautiful view while you drive.

2. Our racks will not leave indentations in your paint. We use vacuum technology, and not suction. We are actually removing the air from the inside of the cups, creating a negative air space inside. The pulling force comes from the air pressure above it pushing down on the cup, the same way that water pressure pushes on a door of a car that has gone into the water. Our cups average 220lbs of pulling force per application. The pulling force referenced is the amount of physical force required to actually remove the cup from the surface, and not the amount of force that is being placed upon the surface of the car. That being said, you do not want to use our cups on a surface that has been wrapped, as it will pull the wrapping off the car in the spots where the cups are while in use.

3. Depending on your water situation in your area, rings can be left on your car. These normally will come right off, as this is the leftover residue from the water that was used to apply the racks. For some cars with a very high gloss finish and soft wax, some rings may show in the surface wax of the car, which will buff out. But in no way is the paint of a car affected by our products. We have our racks on high end cars around the world, without complaints of long term problems and effects on paint. We even have high end dealerships in the US who are SeaSucker dealers, and offering our products to their clientele since they believe in our products, and it is a great option for those who would like to carry their bikes. We recommend using distilled water on the paint for your car if you are in an area with a higher mineral count in your water, or if you are in an area where you have hard water to prevent water rings. But again, these rings will NOT leave permanent blemishes or marks in your paint, and will come off of your car.

I hope this answered some of the concerns and issues that have been brought up here. Now let’s just all do what we love to do, and hop on our bikes and go for a ride……….

ono
ono
9 years ago

@devin {how do I do one of those faces with rolling eyes?}

#1 fork drop outs better be able to handle lateral pressure or the sprinters in the pro peleton are in deep trouble.

#2 as for the sunroof.. {sigh} the seals of a sunroof take far more abuse from closing the doors with all the windows rolled up than a 20 pound bike on a seasucker rack will ever cause

#3 why would a bike violently shake driving down the road?

#4 Seasucker also makes racks for surf and stand up paddleboards, I have a 14 foot race paddleboard, seasucker rack, 300 mile trip at highway speeds .. no problem

Darwin
Darwin
9 years ago

Devin you don’t know what you are talking about so why are you posting?

Roman Kilun
Roman Kilun
9 years ago

Hi Everyone,

I have been using these racks for 3 years and have been completely satisfied. One great feature is that you can take this rack with you anywhere in the world and use it on a rental car. Makes planning your next bike adventure that much easier.

Ajax
Ajax
9 years ago

These things are very dangerous. Do a search for Seasucker rack fail.

Jack
9 years ago

My wife and I are looking to take our new Jeep for a spin. We always take my SUV on our adventures, but I am looking for a bike rack for the Jeep. My Hitch Mount on the SUV works great, but for the Jeep I am looking for something more universal as we like to take all our outdoor gear with us, you never know when you will be needing it. I am just concerned about when my wife takes the Jeep, wouldn’t it be a bit difficult for her to lift the gear and bikes overhead?

Dave Mills
Dave Mills
3 years ago

Who’s is Lemond bike, 89 Time Limited edition in the photo? Am after one of those

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