A splurge for a traveling machine!

The old Vibe was getting pretty long in the tooth and had some fairly scary problems (gas line leaks just should not happen!) And Mrs. Ye Olde Photographer missed her old CR-V, so here we are with a modest SUV. This is the "Touring" (middle) model with the actual navigation option added; not the "Technology Package," to try to keep the price within some range of sanity. It also has a rearview camera for backing up which is increasingly common and quite handy.

The CX-5 has received a lot of positive reviews and the claimed gas mileage is not far off that of the Vibe, even with a 2.5 liter engine rated at 184 horsepower. This has all wheel drive, navigation, Blue Tooth interface and a few other niceties. As of May 15 we have a hitch mount which is to host a bicycle carrier. May 23 we finally settled on a carrier - there are a remarkable number of considerations. The Yakima HighLite 3 is designed to hold three bikes, but the cradles are somewhat adjustable. It is hoped we can ignore the third set, pulling the second set out toward the end to provide more spacing to accommodate a pair of hybrid style machines with their wide, straight handlebars, etc. Many standard hanging style racks apparently assume road bikes with narrow bars, as they have as little as six inches between the tube cradles. When all is set, we'll be ready to tour all over!

After some careful trials, we decided to purchase two of the top tube adapters that hook between the handlebar stem and the seat tube to provide a more nearly horizontal hanging structure. It should do the job. For one bike, it can hang at a crazy angle without an adapter; for two, the crazy angles don't allow the handlebars of one to clear the rear tire or rack of the other.