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Yakima RocketBox Pro 11 ($359)

Introducing a new roof box from Yakima that won't dent the door of your hatchback

Originally Published: September 2, 2011
By Megan Michelson | ESPN.com

Courtesy of YakimaAt 11 cubic feet, you fit can your whole quiver of skis in here.

Skiers on the road are easy to spot. They're driving Toyota trucks, Subaru wagons, and other four-wheel-drive vehicles and they've got a trunk crammed with gear, a couple weather-beaten stickers on the bumper, and a beanie-clad driver sipping coffee behind the wheel. There's one other sure sign that a car is ski-bound: a roof box for carrying gear in a way that's convenient and protected from rocks, thieves, and rain.

WHAT IT IS:
Yakima's brand new RocketBox Pro 11 is an 11-cubic-foot roof box that's 89 inches (or 226 centimeters) long, plenty big enough for four to five pairs of fat skis. The box opens on both sides with an easy-to-push locking button and it assembles in five minutes with no tools required. "This is our first box that ships nested -- the base fits inside the top for shipping, so we were able to reduce the packaging by half," said Joel Grabenstein, the marketing and promotions manager at Oregon-based Yakima. "When it arrives, you separate the two and there's hardware that snaps it back together."

WHY IT RULES:
If you drive a car with a hatchback trunk -- an SUV or a wagon -- and you've tried installing a roof box for carrying skis, then you probably know the familiar thud sound of that hatchback door nailing the backside of the roof box. The RocketBox Pro 11 aims to fix that. "We looked at the types of vehicles people were using to go to the mountains. Many of them have a hatchback," Grabenstein said. "So we put this metal bar in the base of the box that allows you to mount the box farther forward on your car, so you no longer have to deal with your hatch bumping into the box." The only bummer with roof boxes, of course, is they're going to slightly reduce your gas mileage, by between three or four miles per gallon, depending on the vehicle.

WHERE TO FIND IT:
Find a local Yakima dealer near you or buy online.

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