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Independent Review: Inflatable roof rack :'HandiRack'.

Intro

So there we were at the Kanumesse in Nuremberg, Germany. With the Playak van broken and no money to have it fixed, we had decided to rent the cheapest car we could find, a little VW Polo. The saved gas more than paid for the rental cost, so that wasn't too bad :) The only problem was that we hadn't expected to bring anything home from the show...

And guess what? That's right: 2 big boats, a Pyranho Ammo and a Riot Magnum, which was almost bigger than the car... And thus we decided to give the new inflatable roof rack by HandiRack a try.

Mounting the rack on the car was pretty simple. Just use the included pump to inflate the four tubes, tighten the straps inside the car and voila!

Getting the boats on the rack was a bit more tricky. We first tried one boat and that was easy, but getting two boats on the rack is difficult, especially because the whole system is rounded and the material is slippery, so it's hardly doable if you're alone. Even with one of us on each side of the car, we somehow managed to let one boat slide off the rack. Luckily it flew right to the ground without damaging the rental car.

Another tricky part is that there are only 5 recessed tightening rings between the inflatable tubes, and the distance between them was not the same as the width of either boat, so the tightened straps ended up diagonal to the roof - not the most efficient way of tightening things.

But somehow, it felt like the whole stuff might stay on the roof during the 450 kms of German Autobahn we had ahead of us. We stopped twice to tighten all straps a bit better, which proved to be a good idea. When we had left Nuremberg, the sun was shining and it was hot. During the trip back home the sun had gone down and the air pressure in the roof rack had dropped notably, which also resulted in the boats being looser than before.

We started worrying about the rental car again when we noticed how the rack had created a huge dent in the roof. We couldn't be sure if that dent would get out again, but we definitely didn't feel like remounting the whole thing, so we just said a little prayer for the car and moved on.

When we unmounted the boats the next morning, it looked like our prayers were heard. Pop went the roof and saved us a lot of money...

Getting the rack back into its sack was pretty easy, except that it's almost impossible to do if you're alone. Each tube is valved and both valves must be squeezed to let the air out - hardly possible if you're using both hands to roll up that same pair of tubes. For 2 persons it's a very easy job though.

Conclusion

The HandiRack is handy indeed, but I would only recommend it for exceptional situations, only for cars with strong roofs, and for only 2 boats at the very most.

Within those contraints, the HandiRack is a great invention and a very handy and stable tool. Just make sure to double-check for changes in air pressure from time to time.

For Playak,
Jeroen

Links:
HandiRack
Paddle-People, the German distributor (thanks Horst!)
KASM Streetwear, providers of the cool t-shirt in the last photo :)