The Perfect Car for Cyclists

by Mark Ferguson on March 2, 2010

Tartan any­one? Inside the 2010 Volk­swagon Golf GTI

Ideally, I’d ride my bikes lit­er­ally every­where if I had the choice–to racing, train­ing, to the corner store and like­wise com­mut­ing for work.

For most, our pedal powered self suf­fi­ciency hits a road block when Monday morn­ing arrives and it’s time to don the tin flute.

Chances are, rock­ing up to a meet­ing on your Reyn­olds 501 fixie isn’t gonna win the hearts of those cor­por­ate big wigs–especially when you arrive to sign up a multi-million dol­lar deal. Rid­ing around in a suit and tie isn’t the best look and the sweat soaked shirt isn’t gonna make it through the day.

Work aside, what about kids or week­end trips away. There comes a time in a cyc­lists life where the neces­sity for mobil­ity on a broader scale is required. Pretty soon you’re gonna need a car.

The Golden Handcuff

Being no stranger to com­pany cars, I’ve worked in enough pound the pave­ment sales jobs to fancy myself as an urban ver­sion of F1’s Jen­son But­ton (such a cool name). If you ask any of my ex girl­friends, they’ll tell you I’m a genius at read­ing the traffic and tak­ing corners on a dime. Sure they will.

Recently though, I’ve been given a car allow­ance for work rather than a com­pany car.

So this is a good and a bad thing. Now for the first time ever, I have an oppor­tun­ity to buy a car that suits my lifestyle.

Which begs the ques­tions. What is the per­fect car for a cyclist?

Factors that may need to be considered.

  1. Needs to fit at least two bikes in or on.
  2. Needs to be zippy.
  3. Com­fort­able on the open road
  4. Good city driver
  5. I’ll be at lots of coun­try races. It’s would be nice if it had space to sleep in the back.
  6. Good on fuel.
  7. Most import­antly. I’m recently single–needs to impress the ladies. Meh, optional.

Volk­swagon Golf GTI

Push­ing 37 next year, I almost qual­ify to get this little weapon in mid­life crisis red.

Fast, enough room in the back for a bike–with the wheel off. Roof racks are an option for more than one bike. It cov­ers all bases in the looks and com­fort depart­ments but I’ll be get­ting a hotel room when I go country.

Subaru For­ester

The For­ester is an all wheel drive weapon. Handy on the open road, dirt trails and has plenty of room in the back for bikes. Def­in­itely not as zippy as the GTI–more of fam­ily car. Cheaper than the GTI and so far a very good option for a bike rider.

The above men­tioned cars are a pretty well bal­anced across the board. The next two options are more slanted for those week­end trips away. The cyc­ling trips where I just wanna crash in the back of the car.

Volk­swagon Caddy

Now this thing isn’t gonna win the girls over in a hurry but what a great car for a bike rider.

I haven’t test driven one yet, so the drive-ability and com­fort factors are yet to be assessed. The rear seats can be taken out and from what I’m told, you could eas­ily camp overnight in the back of this puppy.

As you can tell, I have a thing for Volk­swagon. There are altern­at­ives with other man­u­fac­tur­ers though. The next step up from the Caddy in terms of size is prob­ably some­thing like the Mecedes Vito. Hyundai do a sim­ilar sized vehicle in the iLoad. Hyundai lose my vote how­ever, just for using the let­ter ‘i’ in their badge. It seems every new product to mar­ket becomes instantly more sal­able if you pre­fix it with an ‘i’.

Mercedes-Benz Vito

I’m not sure about canary yel­low, but cer­tainly mid-life crisis red could be a con­sid­er­a­tion. I’d def­in­itely con­sider going to a car­penter or a modi­fic­a­tions cen­ter and deck­ing this out with all sorts of good­ies. Benches and maybe a bed in the back. Hooks on the side for the bikes and maybe even a work­shop style setup for ser­vi­cing on the go.

What do you think? What factors are import­ant in your next car?

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  • http://gplama.blogspot.com/ Shane

    Subaru Out­back. Not as dopey look­ing as a For­ester, but also not as fast look­ing as a Liberty. We picked up a 2005 Out­back premium 3ltr two years back — best car pur­chase to date, love it.

  • http://twitter.com/parawolf Ian McGin­ley

    I went through this a bit over 12 months ago, but I was spend­ing my own money. it just got to the point where we needed two cars. My part­ner had a work provided car and the sec­ond­ary needed only be prac­tical, not sexy or agile. Ended up with a Fal­con wagon.

    Con­sidered a Vito, but too expens­ive on the second hand mar­ket (hold their value well!) and actu­ally even looked at an ex-ambo Mer­cedes van.. would have been soooo prac­tical as a cyc­list, but for the occa­sional run to the shops and try­ing to park would have been pain­ful — not to men­tion that they have been driven pretty hard.

    When we tripped up to the World Mas­ters Games, we took the work provided Ford Ter­rit­ory Ghia. Everything went inside the car.

    4 bikes (wheels off, in card­board pack­ing boxes)
    11 wheels (track, TT, road, train­ing)
    2 sta­tion­ary train­ers
    Clothes for 2
    2 dogs
    2 laptops
    lots of other things. Everything fit­ted in the back of the car.

    put­ting bikes on the roof is handy but it des­troys your fuel con­sump­tion. We aver­aged 8.9L/100km in a com­fort­able car (albeit aero­dy­nam­ics of a house brick) with everything in it pos­sible for 3 weeks of train­ing and racing in Sydney.

    Could almost do the same in the Fal­con Wagon if it came to it.

  • http://twitter.com/james_foran James Foran

    I have a 2001 Golf GTI which has served me well. Look­ing to down­grade so I can teach my girl­friend to drive. Auto­matic all the way. Look­ing at a not so zippy, but very ver­sat­ile Honda Jazz. will fit two bikes inside with ease! I am against hav­ing bikes on the roof. Just doesn’t sit right with me. It goes against everything I believe in, but, in a years time, I will let her have the car, then a new Golf GTI will be on the cards.

  • http://ak.thebigring.com.au/ Atomic Kit­ten

    Skoda turbo diesel DSG wagon. Zippy, fuel effi­cient, roomy. Classy look­ing. TdF spon­sor too. Golfs are very com­mon on the road — good for repairs, but too com­mon for my liking.

    http://ak.thebigring.com.au/blog.cfm?blogid=56

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    I’ll check it out Shane. I like the look of them anyway.

  • http://www.cyclingmaven.com/ Cyc­ling Maven

    That’s a lot of gear Ian. I bet the dogs were pissed at you.

    The Ford Ter­rit­ory was very close to get­ting a men­tion in the post. I owned one a couple of years ago and so far, it’s the best cyc­ling car I’ve owned. Very heavy on fuel though.

  • http://www.jxpphotography.com.au/ Jar­rod

    “If you ask any of my ex girl­friends, they’ll tell you I’m a genius at read­ing the traffic and tak­ing corners on a dime. Sure they will.”

    I’ve seen you drive, no they wont.

    Another car that deserves a men­tion is the Renault Megane sta­tion wagon. Ser­i­ously! We spent 8 weeks liv­ing in the back of one driv­ing through Europe and it was the busi­ness. Went the diesel option and it was cheap as, but still super fast. I get a bit racey in the car, and have a photo of the speedo sit­ting at 180 while driv­ing along an Auto­bahn in Ger­many. And that was after slow­ing down a bit to take the shot, safety first after all.

  • http://twitter.com/mrfixee mrfixee

    I’d go the GTI (if the GF means any­thing to you) or the Vito (if GF doesn’t matter).

  • Clive Lackey

    If you don’t mind its quirky styl­ing the Skoda Room­ster ticks all the boxes. It will take bikes upright, is light on fuel, lighter than the Golf and, unlike many of its rivals, has a proper full size spare tyre. Down­side is that Skoda failed to mar­ket this model so its resale value is poor.

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