Hi All,
I'm thinking of installing crossbars for my bike.
Do the Lucid Air cross bars create much drag unloaded?
I'm thinking of installing crossbars for my bike.
Do the Lucid Air cross bars create much drag unloaded?
Crossbar Drag
- Thread starter Darrell
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No extra drag and no noticeable efficiency hit, but I HIGHLY recommend Lucid Service install them.
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Why? They look pretty simple…..what’s the subtlety you feel needs expertise?
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Especially with the glass roof, it’s easy to over torque and crack it. If you do it, it’s your fault. If Lucid does it, it’s theirs.
Glass windshields are expensive to replace on Lucid Airs. The roof window is not cheap either. My experience is Lucid should be the installer. They will warranty the repairs should something be installed improperly or damage occurs during install.
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That makes sense.
How about with metal roofs? Still dangers of damage, or more straightforward?
I cannot speak to metal roof. But I’d still have them do it if you can. There were inserts that were corroded out that needed to be replaced so I’d talk to Lucid about installing them.
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Going out on a limb, I would say that the wind flowing over the crossbars is causing the whistling noise...
Clever. I find it hard to believe that Lucid would sell/endorse a product that whistles (fairly loudly) as designed, so I am looking for input as to whether that is the case with others or whether there is something defective with my particular installation. Perhaps I should have made that more obvious in my original post. Thanks to any who can provide useful input/data.
I didn’t have whistling on my crossbars. I don’t know what it would be but try putting duct tape around the base at the gaps between the window and contrails and drive around. Typically whistling is due to air passing through a thin space.
Thank you. I have been experimenting with masking tape over various cracks but have not yet found the culprit. At least knowing that you don't have whistling I can believe I am not chasing ghosts.
This is not a popular thread maybe because I see few lucids with crossbars installed, and maybe a small set of those have this whistling problem. However, for anybody plagued with it as I am, I have isolated the whistling to the long accessory slot that goes across the top of the crossbar, and the whistling only comes from the rear crossbar. This slot has a rubber gasket-thing that is meant to fill the slot when no accessories are present, but there must be some defect in the design in that it apparently doesn't adequately fill the slot. If you tape over the whole slot, wrapping around the front of the crossbar so the tape stays in place, it pretty much gets rid of the whistling, but it looks like donkey. I tried rotating the gasket so it was installed sideways, front, back and upside down, and sometimes the whistling turns into a hum which I found slightly less objectionable.
However, the best answer is this:. The Rhino Vortex Generating Strip by Rhino Rack. These accessory slots seem to be somewhat standard, presumably to allow different accessories to be installed in different crossbars, so these strips fit perfectly and totally got rid of the whistling and hums. Maybe even quieted the overall wind noise. Cheap, effective solution - buy three of them for each crossbar and trim to fit.
www.rhinorack.com
Keep the original rubber gasket in case you have accessories that require it, but I don't know which accessories require it. The bike rack does not.
However, the best answer is this:. The Rhino Vortex Generating Strip by Rhino Rack. These accessory slots seem to be somewhat standard, presumably to allow different accessories to be installed in different crossbars, so these strips fit perfectly and totally got rid of the whistling and hums. Maybe even quieted the overall wind noise. Cheap, effective solution - buy three of them for each crossbar and trim to fit.
#M626 - Vortex Generating Strip |
The M626 VGS Vortex Bar Rubber is designed to reduce wind noise as well as giving your roof racks additional padding and styling.
Keep the original rubber gasket in case you have accessories that require it, but I don't know which accessories require it. The bike rack does not.