Consider a cyclist shopping for a car—one for whom a major factor for choosing one make-model or another is the ease of transporting a bicycle.
What criteria should a cyclist consider when buying a car, partly to transport bikes to trails?
Please restrict your answers and comments to criteria that a cyclist should use when shopping for a car. Thank you.
I'd say the most important thing is you need a hatchback.
This is not good:
This is better
If you take the wheels and saddle off, pretty much any car of the second type will fit one bike. If the car is small, you may need to fold one seat or both, so you have to make a compromise on the number of passengers. But if you go ride with friends, you'll usually transport as many bikes as people, and it will be impossible to fit more than 2 anyway.
Longer sedan with a hatchback:
Now you can put 2 bikes in the trunk without taking the wheels and saddle off (or maybe just one wheel) and drive with a passenger.
It is also possible to fit 3 bikes with a bit of DIY, and keep one rear seat usable, so 3 cyclists can travel with 3 bikes.
Basically if you only need to move one bike your choice of cars should be vast. For 2 bikes and especially 3, the length of the car becomes more important, and especially the usable length in the trunk. You'll have to decide if that is worth the extra cost and difficulty finding a parking spot. I like cars with large trunks because I do a lot of DIY so it's very convenient to be able to transport a lot of stuff.
Now if you go to the top of the mountain with the car to go downhill with your MTB and this involves some dirt road you may want a 4 wheel drive vehicle.
Pickups are not common here since anything that is not inside a locked car will be stolen, and that includes anything on the rear of a pickup.
The bikes are far better loaded behind the car
Until you back into something or you get rear-ended...
Don't be so quick to dismiss roof racks if you're serious about hauling more than 2 bikes.
Good hitch-mounted bike racks for four bikes that don't simply let the bikes hang from the top tube and bang together are expensive. And they're still going to flop around some - there's no way a hitch mount can be fitted to tight enough tolerances to prevent that.
Once you have a roof rack with solid cross bars, you can get four bikes solidly mounted for about 1/2 the cost of a four-bike hitch rack.
And a roof rack has other uses. A bicycle hitch rack can't be used for much of anything other than transporting bicycles.
And roof-mounted bikes won't mess up your reversing camera and sensors - if you need those to back up, you'd better not be putting your bikes there.
If you're serious about hauling your bikes in a much safer manner, get a pickup truck with a long enough bed and use some bed-mounted racks or a van or small truck where you can keep the bikes inside.
I'm going to say that there is nothing car manufactures do to cater specifically for carrying bikes around. At best maybe a few optional accessories to support carting bikes and even then, they are just generic accessories that other accessories fit. Roof racks, hitches etc still require (commonly 3rd party) fittings for your bike.
I would almost go as far to say there are more features of modern vehicles that negatively affect carrying bikes in some way (Reversing sensors for example)
How to fit your bike to your car comes down to practicality and personal preference. You might pick a vehicle because it supports your favoured method better than others.
Personally, I have truck with a tailgate pad. Quite often I'm running around with 7-8 bikes and this suits me to the ground.
Updated after question modified
Things to consider when working out how to carry your bike on a car
No matter what sort of solution you go with for mounting, there are some options that mitigate the negative, however I find the overly expensive. Eg a tilting hitch that can swing out the way of the rear of the vehicle
If carrying the bike(s) outside the car: the only criterion (for the car) should be the presence of a trailer hook. Non-trailer hooks solutions are not super convenient, especially if you want to use the car for a one-day event. If ebikes are involved, non trailer hooks solutions are even more complex to find, as one e-bike can be close to the max permissible height of the entire rack, and it's quite common to have a max rated weight per bike of 15kg. They are however non-trailer hooks racks that seem convenient to use on sedans, but there you need to check the other way around: look at car compatibilities for the rack, instead of finding a rack for the car you have. I haven't found quantified data on the impact on the range of an outside bike on an electric car, but that should be significant.
If carrying the bike inside the car: Getting something as close as possible as a van. Vans have a good inside height, that allows to transport the bikes vertically (bikes are tall objects), optimise cargo area volume (bikes are long objects) low loading height (to avoid having to lift the bike), and have wide openings. Personal vehicles based on vans also have removable seats instead of foldable seats, which has positive impacts on inside height, and volume. Vans also have other advantages, like being big enough to install beds inside, which eases the participation to multiday events - haven't participated to multiday events in cycling, but in other sports where space for tents was a problem.
The current car market isn't great for cyclists. SUVs are not practical for carrying bikes, as the cargo area isn't high enough to store a bike vertically (partly because of the folding seats, that take space vertically when folded), and the loading area is super high. Station wagons give me the impression to have slipped into the "sporty cars with practical considerations", rather than being practical first (narrow opening). The former segment of the MPV was a good candidate, but has been killed to favour SUVs, and the last ones (looks like they totally disappeared from North America, but there are still survivors in Europe) won't probably survive electrification - and the ones that are electrified do not have great ranges, which is a problem because cycling also usually involve traveling far.
The best answer is probably vehicles derived from commercial vehicles — that are usually sold in different circuits, if you accept the negative image that classically goes with these vehicles (and the "reduced" range for electric ones). In Europe, this segment is developed enough (in appearance at least, as there is a lot of rebranding/co-development in this segment), with the "non-commercial versions" being sold in regular dealerships. In North America, the situation seems a bit more complicated, as commercial vehicles seem to be rather based on pick-up trucks rather than vans (Ford seems to be an exception, but I haven't conducted extensive research).
The main question to consider is what else is the car being used for, and how often does it carry bikes? Its rare for people to only use a car to carry bikes, and not wise to make lots of compromises for a small percent of use - e.g. buying a large van for pickup to carry 4 bikes once a month when a smallish car with two bikes on roof racks and two on the rear will do the bike adequately and might be much better for the other uses you have in mind.
Consider is how - on top, inside, behind, or in the case of a pickup use the deck/tray.
Next is how many bikes one, two or ten and number of passengers (same as bikes, one more than bikes for a shuttle driver, more than one bike per person)?
1-2 bikes roof rack is an option, some will put 4 up to, but it becomes a problem loading onto high roofed vehicles (SUV's/4x4's). Four will struggle to fit on narrow racks of small cars.
Behind the car even the smallest car will do two bikes, more than two, you probably want bigger car. If you are thinking more than four, you need a big car as that is a lot of weight hanging off the back. You then need to decide rack - a 2" receiver is by far the strongest, towball mounting less so, and a strap on rack OK, but not as good.
In the car needs a lot of space for more than one bike. Even many medium sized cars will need wheels removed to fit a single bike, let alone 2 or more. A van is the ideal vehicle for transporting bikes inside.
Pickups / utes (as known in parts of the world) are probably the most versatile for carrying bikes and can solve the problem a number of ways. Roof racks above the tray, bikes inside the tray, front wheels hanging over the tail gate, and rear acks are all possible.
Also consider space for other gear that goes along with cycling. If you going to be doing overnighters out of town, you need a car that carry overnight bags as well as people and bikes.
Pick up truck:
Pros:
Cons:
I drive a mid-size pickup truck and it is the most flexible option I've experimented. Besides the pickup, I have used roof racks on a station wagon, rear mounted racks on a SUV, and hitch mounted racks. All of them have size, shape and weight limitations that can be easily overcome with a pickup truck for most cases. Even some tandem, recumbent, trikes and quads can be carried with a truck with no special accessories.
You can use accessories but you can also transport one bike with no accessories at all.
The single most basic accessory of all is a cargo bed liner, which is general purpose and protect both the car and the load. I add Cargo straps to secure the bikes against movement and a cable lock to secure them against theft. From there on, you can get all sorts of fancy mounts, tail gate pads, etc.
When I drive alone to a trail, I simply "toss" the bike in the cargo area and go. But when I go with friends I can easily accommodate 4 bikes. With some care, even 6 bikes using no more than a couple of ratchet straps. If you add roof rack and hitch mounted rack you can carry way more bikes than riders fit inside the cab (...).
Another great advantage is that the bikes come dirty after the ride, It just does not matter, I can hose-wash the bed liner or use a broom to take the dirt out.
Another thing that I like is that the bike is reasonably protected from read end collisions and they are not high up so they are not as prone to hit low structures like a garage door or a low bridge, a drive-thru roof, etc.
One disadvantage of a pickup truck may be the open cargo area is prone to theft of lose items when parked or even at a trafic light stop. I have installed a cargo cover that can be rolled up to solve that issue, so it is like having a very large trunk. Perfect for luggage and other stuff. It also serves a purpose when taking the bike to/from the service shop, as I can leave the bike in the car while being protected from sun/rain and it is out of view of thieves and curious people. A camper or truck cap can also solve this issue, even though it can limit the shape and or size of the cargo you can carry.
Finally, I am a DIY enthusiast, so carrying small quantities of materials (especially sheet goods) every now an then is another use case that fits perfectly for me. It would take a lot to convince me to use another car type.
