I have a Megawarrior with extension and have my spare mounted up top with the Yakima spare tire mount. I do not find the Megawarrior to be too large. It may be so if attached to the factory rack, but with 1A towers and load bars the megawarrior looks right at home atop an 80. More importantly, the extra real estate is invaluable when overlanding with a family of five.
My spare is a heavy 305/70r16 load range E tire, and it can be a PITA getting it up and down, but the only time I've ever needed to was for five wheel rotations. The vehicle might be a little more tippy with the tire up there, but I've never noticed it. I probably don't wheel as aggressively as some of you. I do know it increases noise and reduces fuel economy, but the Cruiser doesn't exactly excel in either of those areas anyway. Obviously a rear tire swingout would be preferable, and at some point I do plan to buy one, but the spare rides just fine on the roof for the time being.
Yes, I have five crossbars. I know it's excessive, but the Warrior line of racks are not particularly robust, and the extra bars help to distribute the load more evenly across the roof. The towers and bars can be found inexpensively on the second hand market and later sold for about the same, so cost wasn't much of a factor here.
If you look closely you'll see I also have a bike tray mounted on either side of the Megawarrior. We don't do a lot of biking, but when we do take the bikes somewhere I add three more mounts to the megawarrior basket for a total of five bikes on top. I can also add ski/snowboard mounts or any of the other Yakima products just as easily.
The flexibility and adaptability is why I went with Yakima in the first place. I know it isn't as strong or as cool as many of the other options out there, but I already had a bunch of Yakima stuff from prior vehicles, and I have to say the setup has worked quite well.
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