Honda CR-V: swallowed bike upright

Flip the seats down to create volumes of space

One of the things I haven’t touched on is the estate car practicality of the Honda CR-V.

The rear seats are easy to fold down: pull a hoop to flip the backrests down; then lift another hoop tilts the seat base up; the seats are held upright by a restraint fitted to the base of the B-pillar – the pillar which houses the driver and passenger seatbelts. It’s all very easy.

The space it liberates is enough to take my bike upright without needing to remove the front wheel. A couple of bungees and some foam padding made sure the bike was secured properly.

I needed my bike to take part in a training session prior to my first triathlon – the Mazda Blenheim Triathlon. This involves a 750m lake swim; a 20km cycle; followed by a 5km run.

The training session was organised by Mazda for a bunch of motoring journalists invited to take part – this includes Sam Hardy from Auto Express and also Business Car Manager road tester. And Sam turned up