Does My Roof Rack Affect My Gas Mileage?

I guess the gas mileage could be rather poor when I take my e-bike down the road on my roof racks.

http://planetgreen.di...

Last Wednesday we left the Eastern Townships of Quebec to drive back home to Kitchener, get a few things, and then head to Long Point on Lake Erie. With my e-bike on the roof racks, plus a ski box full of stuff, there was a lot of potential wind resistance up top.





By keeping the speed down to 90 km/hr the mileage was really fantastic. We filled up with cheap Ontario gas as soon as we crossed the border from Quebec into Ontario (cheap compared to Quebec prices). We drove to Kitchener, did some errands, grocery shopping, etc and then headed to Lake Erie. We finally had to pull into a gas station and fill up as we were leaving Paris, Ontario towards Simcoe. All that driving from Quebec and it was only $38.00 to fill up.

If I did my normal 120 km/hr there is no way we could have gone so far on one tank of gas.

It was also nice to be able to have one person sleep in the comfy bed in the back while the other person was driving. The cruising speed was low, but not having to stop to rest and get a motel room or a campsite saved both time and money.