Laurabelle's Blog

Last weekend Jeff and I invested in a Yakima roof rack to carry skis to Tahoe, whence we are going next weekend for Christmas. Yesterday we attempted to install it on top of the car.

This was slightly more interesting than it should have been. Reading through the directions, I discovered that crucial information was missing from the directions. The rack is designed so that the same basic parts can be installed on many different cars, with only slightly different components (mostly what Yakima calls Q-clips, of which there are many different sizes and shapes). The Q-clip boxes include the required measurements for the cars they fit, but guess what? No Honda Civic mentioned anywhere. Oops.

The guy we talked to at REI couldn't find the measurements, but Jeff managed to locate them by searching Yakima's site with Google. (Yay Google indexing PDFs!)

We managed to get the cross-bars installed with minimal trouble, since Jeff and I both know how to read and follow instructions. However, when it came to installing the attachment for carrying skis, we ran into a more significant snag. The instructions told us to insert a screw through a certain piece of metal where there was no hole! We took the thing back to REI, and the Customer Service rep who helped us thought this was hilarious. She opened another box for us, and voilà, holes in the right places. Problem solved.

After that, putting the ski attachment on the racks was child's play.

We also bought a fairing during the REI trip yesterday; the difference in the wind noise was amazing. Jeff thought it was worth the $55 just because it looks cool, but I appreciate the functionality more.

So we're set to ski next weekend. Hopefully I'll have stories to tell, but I won't be telling them while there. We'll be in a hotel where there are no phones in the rooms, no televisions, and no net access. Bliss.