I have a Yakima roof rack on my car. I can remove the cross bars when I don't need them, but the biggest plus is that the front cross bar has a telescoping piece inside of it. When I want to load my canoe, I pull this telescoping piece out, put the front end of the canoe on that (the canoe is now sitting with one end in the air, the other end on the ground). Then I walk to the back of the canoe, lift it up on the back cross bar (canoe is now at roof rack level), then walk back to the front and slide the front end of the canoe over the car to where it should sit for transport, push the telescoping piece back into the cross bar, tie the canoe down and I'm off! I love the fact that I can load and unload the canoe easily by myself.