Mini Life

Mini and Bicycle Racks

We have the 2-bike version of the Saris Bones rack that is perfect for the Miata and carrying our road bikes (or in a pinch the tandem), but now we also have a Mini and mountain bikes. Because of the plastic roof small lip spoiler on the Mini there is no place to hook what would be the top straps of the Bones without risking breaking that plastic piece. After doing a bunch of online searching around the Mini Forums and not really finding anyone with a good work around, they just put the straps on ignoring the pressure on the lip, I was about to give up when I had an idea – a pool noodle.

I went to my favorite store, Amazon, and found the largest diameter noodle with the highest density and bought an Oodles Monster Jumbo Pool Noodle. When I got it, I cut it to the length of the width of the back window to try it out. I got the rack arms adjusted to get them parallel to the ground and braced the bottom legs on the bumper. I then lengthened the straps so I could get them hooked in the right spots. The top straps hooked in on top and the noodle was just right in keeping any pressure off the lip spoiler, the side straps hooked on the body of the door, not the glass, but the bottom straps would not reach the bottom of the hatch door. I think it might have worked without them, but I would probably get some longer ones for some enhanced security.

Seeing as I have never tried the mountain bikes with the Bones rack, now was the time. I went and got my MTB to put on spot closest to the car because it is the tallest. Because of the frame geometry the bike rested in a nose down attitude, unlike the level look of the road bikes. The frame tubes are rectangular, not round, they didn’t rest in the cradle nicely, but with the three loops tightened it was held in tightly. I then grabbed Donna’s size small framed bike (mine is a large) and it would not go over the rack arms, there just wasn’t a large enough opening in the frame. Now what?

My first thought was returning to a roof rack, we used to have one that was universal and removable, so I researched the genuine Mini rack first. This has the benefit of being designed for the car. The roof rack base system is a couple hundred dollars, the rack itself is about $150 and you need two of them, so this would cost roughly $500 to out fit the car. I think this is the best way to accomplish this and I an order would already be placed except for the negatives. Firstly, this would be mounted on the car at all times generating wind noise, slightly decreasing gas mileage and getting all covered in bugs. Some of this could be eliminated by removing the bike rack section, leaving the base, but this increases time and trouble when you do want to transport the bikes. Secondly, there is the issue of having to lift the bikes up onto the roof, I am tall enough, but my MTB weighs 35 pounds, and that is a lot of unwieldy to hoist up that far making the chance for a mistake of scratching the car or dropping the bike a consideration.

Option #2 was a trailer hitch mounted rack. This option comes in around $400 if I do the work of installing the $200 trailer hitch. You have to remove the rear bumper which according to folks on the Mini Forums only takes an hour to 1-1/2 which translates into around 4 to 5 hours in real life. The pluses are that you only need to lift the bikes a foot off the ground, it is easy to put on and take off and you have zero chance of shearing everything off the roof when you drive into your garage forgetting about the bikes. The big negative is that the trailer hitch receiver comes out of middle of the bumper and you lose your back up light/rear fog lamp assembly. No one on the forums mentioned anything about whether the car throws a code because of this, I would think with the electrics being on a CANBUS system there might be some issue.

The third possibility is a variation on the roof rack, a pair of Talon suction cup mounts from SeaSucker. This option costs about $500. This is the 21st century version of that original universal and removable rack as it is easy on and off, but the hoisting the bikes up issue still remains, although slightly easier because you get to remove the front wheel. But the removed front wheels now have to be stored inside the car, that is unless you want to spend another $250 for a pair of suctioned wheel mounts again for the roof. Other downsides are the trust issue of just suction cups alone holding your bikes on the roof, the extra care required to keep the car paint clean and unscratched, plus the ease of installation translates into ease of theft…

The fourth, and most radical, option is to just sell the Mini and buy a Jeep so we can get one of those bike racks that fit on the spare tire, but then again that probably wouldn’t fit Donna’s small framed MTB. Though a trailer hitch rack on the Jeep would be perfect. Now I just need to go start a GoFundMe site for that Wrangler…

Magnetic Mini

On New Year’s Day, we ran a quick errand to Home Depot and on the way back we stopped at Albertsons for a couple of items. As we were walking towards the store from the parking lot, a lady pushing her cart out of the store, waved us over and asked, “What year is your Mini?” When I told her it was a 2013, she said, “Oh, too bad, I have a car cover for a 2007 Mini and I was going to ask if you wanted it.” I told her that in fact it would fit our car as the 2nd generation Minis ran from 2007 to 2014. She said, “Well, I’m giving it away because I sold the car a while ago and it is just taking up space in my garage. Do you want it?” Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, we said, “Sure, we’ll take it.” She then said, “I live just up the street, when can you come get it?” We said, “We are just picking up a couple items. We could be there in 15 minutes?” She then explained where she lived and she wasn’t kidding about the just up the street thing, it was literally a half mile along the same cross road as the store…

After leaving her promising to see her in a few minutes, maybe two steps closer to Alberstons front door another lady comes up and says, “Did you just get out of that Mini?” We nod in the affirmative and she says, “How do you like it?” We both launch into how much we like the car. She said, “I have a older Ford Escape and I have trouble seeing out of it when trying to back up especially.” She was about Donna’s height, if not maybe a little shorter, so Donna told her about selling our bigger car, just to get this to be able to see more. So Donna said, “Would you like come sit in it?” “Sure,” she said. So we walked back over to the car and she sat in it and marveled at the view. She said she saw one at a used car lot and was going to go down with her husband to see about buying it.

We finally got to go inside and buy what we came for. After leaving there we stopped at lady number one’s house. When we finally got home we unloaded a step ladder, 2 gallons of distilled water and a car cover for the Ladybug.

Lost and Found

These two items have been sitting on the side of the computer desk since sometime in early June awaiting my blogging about them. Well, 4 months is about right for them to have ripened…

We bought the Mini in October of 2017 and for the first 5 months it received almost a monthly bath. It could probably wait a bit longer in between washings except aerodynamics and the vertical rear end ensures a very dirty back surface in short order. When we returned from our month long road trip in May I decided to do a deeper cleaning than the usual exterior wash and vacuum the mats.

Lost – While cleaning the backs of the leatherette front seats I felt a square shaped bump in the map pocket of the drivers seat. Turned out it was the jewel case for the BeeGees One Night Only CD. The case was empty and there wasn’t any CD in the car’s player when we bought it, so I guess the previous owner popped the disc out and forgot the case was behind the seat.

Found – I had remembered to make sure the spare tire, which is mounted under the car had a full load of air before the trip, but had never really checked to see if the jack, etc. that was needed to changed out a flat tire was complete. So while vacuuming the “trunk” area I pulled up the flat carpeted fiberboard that covers the tire changing tools. There is a jack, a lug wrench, a wrench to remove the spare, a couple other things required for the job and a square pack of what looks like folded white vinyl. It was unopened, I really didn’t want to open it, so I tried to look it up on the web, but there wasn’t any number or anything. I looked up the German words on the package, teile is parts and München is Munich, so no help. My best guess is it a drop cloth for put down on the ground when changing a flat so you don’t get dirty.

Fun with Figures

Day 2 of Not Being on our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

We were gone for 31 days and of those, 20 were spent driving from one place to another. There was a day in west Texas visiting Donna’s brother, a couple days in Albuquerque, seven days in Lake Tahoe and another day in Louisiana visiting a friend. We filled up with gas 18 times and used a total of 190 gallons for the 7,291 mile trip for an average of 38.4 miles per gallon.

The Mini uses premium fuel and I never really shopped around so take these numbers for what they are worth. The cheapest gas (besides the original fill up at home) was in Pelham, AL at $2.95 a gallon. The next cheapest was in Albuquerque, NM at $2.96. The highest was in Reno, NV at $3.72 a gallon and the second highest was also in Nevada in West Wendover at $3.63. For the trip we averaged $3.21 a gallon and spent a grand total of $677.05 on fuel.

Like I did 9 years ago with a rental car when we went out west, I attached a static cling travel bug to the back of the Lady Bug for our drive to and from the west, And just like that one no one spotted it on the car and logged it. I dipped it in about half of the geocaches we did along the way to rack up some miles anyway. Because the mileage for travel bugs is tallied in a “as the crow flies” manner between caches it only totaled only 4,834 miles compared to the 7,291 the car itself traveled.

We geocached for 17 of the 31 days on the trip. We looked for 70 caches. We found 63 and DNF’d seven for a success rate of 90%. Our biggest day was finding 12 caches, missing 2, on a Tuesday in Albuquerque1 while walking along some trails near the Rio Grande River. We found the most, 23, in surprise, Texas the state we spent the most time in. We found the fewest in Louisiana, just one on the way back thru and by grabbing 15 caches in Nevada we added another state cached in to bring our total to 30.

Home Again Home Again Jiggity-Jig

Day 31 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Montgomery, AL to Aiken, SC. This is all the stuff we carried with us on the trip.

  1. My clothes
  2. Donna’s clothes
  3. Our dress-up clothes for the wedding (dry cleaned and pressed on arrival)
  4. Donna’s hiking boots and casual shoes
  5. My hiking boots and sneakers
  6. Bathroom items (including our Water-Pik)
  7. Our favorite soft drinks and snacks
  8. Kitchen items (paper towels, plastic mugs, etc.)
  9. Three days worth of dirty clothes (which is why #1 & #2 aren’t bulging)
  10. Laptop bag
  11. Soft-sided cooler with ice packs for cooling the day’s drinks and snacks
  12. Geocaching knapsack
  13. Hiking sticks

The Mini’s back seats were folded down and the three black bags (1,2,3), the laptop bag (10) and the soft-sided cooler (11) were on top of them, the rest of the items were strategically crammed into the “trunk area” behind the seats and under the cover. About 90% of this stuff made the trip into the hotel room each night. We used a cart to haul it all up in the evening, then usually made two trips down each morning to load the car back up.

Penultimate Day Drive

Day 30 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Hammond, LA to Montgomery, AL. No geocaching or sightseeing today because of the weather and probably none for tomorrow either as we will be anxious to just get back home.

When we got up in Hammond in the morning I checked the radar and I could see the rain bands still circling around the center of Alberto with the bottom of them around Montgomery. The sky was threatening all day, but it hardly sprinkled on the drive here and it is yet to rain, but from the looks of the sky as we walked back to the hotel after dinner it might pour at any minute.

It finally did rain and rain hard for about 2 hours just around sunset. Thunder and lightning included, but I think Alberto is too far north to mess with us anymore. If we run into any precipitation on the way home tomorrow it will be of the usual heat and humidity fueled summer afternoon variety.

Where The Locals Eat

Day 27 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Minden, LA to Hammond, LA. Last night’s hotel clerk recommendation for a good breakfast where the locals eat was to drive just up the street a bit and go to Hamburger Happiness and Southern Maid Doughnuts. We were worried a bit as there was only one other vehicle in the lot when we pulled in.

The one guy sitting by himself didn’t seem too friendly, but the nice old lady at the counter where we placed and paid for our order was very pleasant. I think it was literally a mom and pop shop because I could see an old man through the saloon doors to the kitchen.

Soon the rest of the locals started arriving one by one and they greeted each other by name. The same lady brought our food to us pipping hot and it was delicious. The portions were correct and the price was right. We could hear the locals in background discussing the weather and the size of farm tractors. When we finished up and stepped outside I knew I needed to snap a picture. Take a guess, which one of these things is not like the other.