Roof Rack - Thule 517 bike rack and factory aero bars

[glacious]

I have a 2008 highlander sport, it has the factory aero (wide/oval bars). The Thule 517 bike rack has U bolts that went around a square bar, but now not so much.

Does anyone know of a way to directly mount the Thule bike racks to the stock rack with the highlander? I don't want to add another 3-4" by attaching the goofy looking Ride-On adapter (basically mounts square bars on top of your aero bars).

There is the XAdapt9, but it seems to need channels in the aero-bars, which the highlander does not have.



Has anyone either found an accessory to make this work directly on the aero bars, or a solid/nice looking 'hack' that worked out?

Thanks!


*edit* - or, if anyone has found crossbars that fit the factory sidebars that have T-channels in them, that will work as well (with XAdapt9 from Thule), I haven't found any that will go on the Highlander factory sidebars.

[grinn253]

Thule has a new 513, 'Dometique' bicycle rack:
http://www.orsracksdirect.com/thule-...bike-rack.html

Which is supposed to fit OEM style crossbars (also round & square) without need for adapters.

This might be an option if you want to give up using the 517 rack.

Laters!
Edgardo

[glacious]

Nice!! I didn't see this rack (apparently just came out last month). Not a huge fan of shelling out another $250 for a pair. I just contacted Thule to see if there was a way to adapt the mounting hardware of the 513 to the 517.

Thanks again for the response!