How I Carry My Bikes on a Small Car (No Hitch Needed!)

Welcome to The Bicycle Rider! If you’ve ever wondered how to carry a bike on a small car without a trailer hitch, this video is for you. Today, I’m showing you the perfect solution for my Fiat 500: the Mount Evo Duo suction cup bike rack.

What makes this rack so special? Unlike traditional trunk racks, the Mount Evo Duo allows you to access your trunk or hatchback without undoing any attachment straps. It’s a game-changer for day trips and long-distance travel, giving you easy access to your gear without any hassle.

We put this rack to the ultimate test by taking it on a serious adventure—from France all the way to the La GravelDonnée event in Sardinia! This trip was a major milestone for how well this little rack has worked for me. It’s proven to be secure, reliable, and incredibly practical.

This video isn’t just a product review; it’s a look at how the right gear can make all the difference, enhancing your vacation by making it easy to bring your bikes along.

Check out the La GravelDonnée video here: [Link to your La GravelDonnée video]

#TheBicycleRider #MountEvoDuo #SuctionCupBikeRack #Fiat500 #BikeRackReview #NoHitchBikeRack #HatchbackBikeRack #SmallCarBikeRack #BikeTravel #LaGravelDonnee

[Applause] [Music] All right. Well, you guys know I’ve been doing a uh product review on the Mount Evo suction cup bike rack. Um, you know, our our goal was to leave France traveling in this little Fiat 500 adventure vehicle and bring bicycles with us. One of the reasons we wanted to bring the bicycles with us was because we wanted to end up here thousands and thousands of kilometers later, thousands of, well, I shouldn’t say thousands, a couple ferry trips, a lot of winding roads, uh, just to get up to this point here where we stayed, there are some of the windiest, skinny roads I’ve ever seen in my life. um driving through Italy with the Fiat. These Italian drivers, especially the local ones, know how to hit these roads. So, this suction cup bike rack has been put through the ultimate test of GeForce. Um, I like to drive fast. I uh you know, it’s it’s one of one of my passions and I’m careful about my driver’s license nowadays. But when you’re flowing with the flow of traffic and it’s absolutely just ripping through these these mountain canyons, I didn’t want to have to worry about the bike rack. And since I have owned a bike shop and I have sold a lot of the suction cup style racks, um I I have faith in them. I’ve never dealt with Mount Evo. There’s their logo right there. Um there’s their logo right there, Mount Evo. This is the duo. the duo and it’s for two bikes. Um, like I said, because of my experience with the suction cup bike racks and I sold Sea Sucker for for a lot of years in the United States, I have confidence in these. But this was a new brand um out of uh Great Britain, right, Marissa? Out of England. Oh, out of England. I I get it all confused. I get it all confused sometimes. But um Marissa called up, was able to talk to their their product managers and ask a few questions and we asked, will they fit on the Fiat 500? and they knew right away this car and knew it would fit. So, we got the definite answer that it would work. Um, and here we are. It’s not our final destination. We still have lot thousands of kilometers to go, but this was the big deal to get the bicycles to a bicycle event here in Velisro, Sardinia, um, that we did yesterday. So, uh, it was amazing. traveling without bicycles just doesn’t add the the flare that I want when I’m doing a worldwide trip. And the Fiat gets great gas mileage, so sometimes you don’t have to have a big van. Um, this is easy to park in the cities. Um, it’s been a it’s been a great rack. So, I’m going to give the thumbs up to the to the Mount Evo products. The the construction is really good. I’ve got a few trip tricks and tips videos that I’ve done about the the end caps and just not wanting to lose those while you’re on vacation and different ways to uh not lose those. I I was actually cut a piece of the provided velcro that stops the crank arm from rolling. I cut it thin and I I kind of thread it through when the bike’s not on there and and velcro it rather than taking the caps on and off, on and off and off on or off or just driving around with the caps where they could fall out. So, they they do fit in tight with an O-ring, but when you’re on vacation, you don’t want to lose those caps. So, a couple tips and tricks videos, but it’s been a great rack and it has enabled us to to get the bikes to to Sardinia, uh, Velisro, Sardinia, and it’s been a definitely worth every bit of of bringing, you know, and I want to say hassle, you know, cuz it is sometimes it’s it’s works bringing bikes and then you go to some bed and breakfastes and or or Airbnbs and, you know, they don’t want the bikes inside and I don’t know, It’s traveling with bikes sometimes is is logistically harder, but it is the the the the thing is it’s possible. Like you can have a little sports car, get good gas mileage, have that feeling of driving a sports car. You don’t have to have a hitch or some kind of bike rack on the back. If I were to strap on a bike rack here, every time I wanted to get in and out of the trunk, it would be a hassle. And you wouldn’t believe how many times we want to get in and out of the trunk to get stuff. And if I had to loosen a strap bike rack every time, it would really be a pain in the ass. So, having these suction cups that you could put on and take off. We did have a little problem with the Fiat cuz the Fiat is having uh paint flakes and the suction cups have a hard time sticking to the the where the paint’s flaked off. That’s not the rack’s fault. That’s, you know, that’s just uh part of it. So, we put down some vinyl. My vinyl’s wrinkled, so now it doesn’t stick to the vinyl as good. This morning I pulled the vinyl off of this side and all of a sudden we’ve got things sticking sticking pretty good again. So, but that’s not any fault of the Mount Evo. If we had a good clear coat paint job, it would stick no problem. But you can see on this little Fiat, the the paint’s flaking off the top. So, nothing against Mount Evo there. But if you do have a car that has a rag top or not a smooth surface, um you might have a little problem. We were going to put a a big smiley face sticker or something on there and decided on some vinyl and when I put the vinyl down it kind of wrinkled up somehow. Um on the glass it’s no problem. We put this bike rack on in the beginning. We haven’t taken it off. Mount Evo does provide a security cable. This is not Mount Evo security cable. If you’re ordering products from them, go ahead and order through the security cable. We didn’t think about it till it was too late, so I kind of had to make my own with some cable. And then it wraps down. I’ve got a little bike lock there. So people would actually have to break the window to get the bike rack off and it just adds an extra complexity for for someone to to steal your stuff. Um you can take these off really easy and put it inside the car. So that’s probably the best theft protection, but uh where we’re traveling, I haven’t really felt that threatened, you know, especially here in Sardinia, the people are so so nice. Um, I feel like threat theft really isn’t even an issue here. But just, you know, for for future, um, you know, for making this video and telling people our experience with with this rack, that’s one of the things that, uh, you know, we don’t want to lose this rack because it’ be a pain in the butt with you have a bicycle, you’re trying to travel, and you have no way to put it on your car. So, anyway, enough about uh our travels. Let me just tell you right now that the the Mount Evo rack is it’s a quality product and it really does provide that solution for for driving in a little sports car or something that you don’t want to have strapped or have a hitch put on. Uh here in Europe they don’t even have the type of hitches that we have in the United States with a one quarter slide in you know rear mounted rack. Here in Europe, they’ve got this I’m going to say weird because it’s different to me, but a little ball that comes up and I So, most of the bike racks I see in Europe strap onto the back and and like I said a few minutes ago, that’s that’s just not a solution for us. So, there it is. Mount Evo. We’re going to get rolling, but I wanted to take stop and take a little bit of time and just share this this experience for people that want to travel with their bikes and they’re scratching their heads going, “How the heck do I get a bike on a Porsche?” That’s how right there. Suction cups. They work good. And I I’m lucky. I do have friends in Buxy, Mississippi. They they clean and install windows on these big casino skyscrapers. And the guy, you know, that does it owns the company is a friend of mine, and they use suction cups. And he goes, “Bart, we’re up in the wind, 21 stories high with big plate glass with basically people underneath it. We can’t we have to rely on the suction cup.” So, it’s an old technology. The the these suction cups hold big pieces of plank glass that, you know, they’re putting on skyscrapers. So, that’s just uh kind of how you can equal the G-forces that I could not lift. I could not break this off the the the top of the car. I can if I break the suction, but I can’t just pull like these things. They’re they’re hooked. Um this this suction it’s I guess it’s physics. So, if you’re wondering if they work, I wouldn’t trust thousands of dollars worth of bicycle or even worse causing an accident and and having some kind of tragedy happened cuz my bike fell off the top of a car. Um, obviously they work thousands of miles later. This is a real testimonial on on this type of rack system. And if you’re in Europe, definitely, you know, support your local countries, you know, the the European countries. So, um, this is a a good product and they’re these guys, call them up. They’re easy to talk to. It’s not uh they’re not paying me to do this video. I’m really just sharing this so people can can take their Porsche or their Fiat 500 and go travel and experience the world. That’s what we’re doing. And it makes me happy to be able to do this. And yesterday’s bike ride made me so happy. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without this this bike with me. So, uh, Bart from Bike Rider YouTube, if you like what I do, just please like and subscribe. Uh, it doesn’t cost you anything. Only takes you a second and it sure does uh help me um with the YouTube algorithm that I’m trying to figure out. But I I know if you like and subscribe or the notification bell, it all of a sudden YouTube likes me better. And I want YouTube to like me. So, cuz I want to keep doing videos for you guys. All right, Bart from Bicarity YouTube over and out.