Thule Round Trip Bike Travel Case Review - etrailer.com

http://www.etrailer.com/p-TH100500.html Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information. Today we are going to show you part number TH699, the Round Trip Bike Travel Case from Thule. What we have here is a nice, heavy-duty travel case for your bike when you want to travel long distances and do not want to have it sitting on top of the car or you have to ship it somewhere. This bike travel case comes fully equipped with all the pieces and parts needed to properly ship your bike, with the padding, tie-downs, even tool bag for your parts and even smaller parts. Let us go ahead and open it up and show you all the packing contents that it comes with. First off, you have these buckles for the straps that hold the entire case together. It is basically one big clamshell design. It comes equipped with these two straps here, and what you need to do is actually tie down the bike to the inside of the case via these two tie-down points right here. Also, you have got the whole storage bag for some of your loose parts like the handlebars, seat and whatnot, and it also comes with two chain covers and a small tool bag to keep your tools to reassemble your bike once you get to your destination. Pretty complete little unit. Even the bag itself has its own little small-parts bag on the interior. All right, next we have the divider that goes between the bike and your wheels. We have two generous pieces of foam that also help to hold your bike in place. And then we have the other half of the cover. It also has a set of casters to help transport it when it is off your vehicle. And on the opposite side it has this built-in handle to help you roll it around with. And on the sides you notice there are two loops here that just provide a little extra security so you can add a couple of padlocks to it. All right, let us go ahead and pack up a bike and show you how it looks. First we will lay our front wheel in, and then we will lay in our back wheel, with the cogs pointing up. And then we will put in our divider. And then next we will lay in a piece of foam, and then we go ahead and lay in our bike frame. You can see you do have to have the handlebars off the stem. At this point we want to install your chain cover to keep it from scratching up your bike. Get that wrapped up and now we will go ahead and wrap and secure it in here. Right now you chain is secure. Then you can install your seat here, and with the tool bag here you can put your small pedals and your tools with it. And the tools you used to disassemble the bike - go ahead and wrap it up and then it is ready to go in the case. Once you get to this point,you can go ahead and tie down the bike with the straps and kind of hold it securely in place. Pull it through the loops. Then we can install our last piece of foam, and then we go ahead and put our cover back on top of it. As you see here, we have the Round Trip Bike Case installed on a typical roof rack. And we will show you how it is properly positioned, and next we will go ahead and show you how it actually gets attached to the bicycle rack. As you can see here, there is a built-in groove in the case here to help you adapt it and orient the case onto the rack nice and straight. And also it is kind of wide to help fit a variety of different roof rack bars like Yakima brand, or the Thule brand shown, or even a lot of factory car racks. And also, on the back here the groove kind of comes up and just stays like that all the way out back, allowing for a different variety of distances on the roof racks. Parts of the RFM kit that attach the carrier to the bicycle rack consist of three parts: the strapping itself, the buck cover, and there is also a foam gasket that gets installed on the cover itself to help keep wind, rain and dirt from getting inside the cargo carrier. First thing is just loop the straps over the top of the carrier, and just let that side stay there for now. And then go to the other side and wrap it around the loop of the bar. Go ahead and toss the rest of the strap back onto the other side and then wrap it around underneath of it. Try to keep the it in the same track. Get your cover out of the way, and just slip it through the buckle, and just pull it down tight. Do the same thing for front and rear. And there you have it for part number TH699 from Thule, the Round Trip Bike Travel Case.