We were the only people at the funeral with a loaded-up bike rack.

Long before I was your (least) favorite writer here at Road & Track, long before I took my first flag in a NASA race or my first trophy in an SCCA autocross, I was a BMX racer who competed at every level from local-track novice to national-level pro. In the course of the 19 years I spent "dropping gates" around the country, I met some of the best people I've ever known. One of them died last week, suffered a heart attack while he was training for his next race. He was just two years older than I am.

His family put his two race bikes to the sides of the coffin, had his trophies and his number plates out on display. He was a racer. It was who he was, period point blank. He never stopped. Never stopped winning, either. Shortly before his death, while I was testing a GT4 race car at Sebring, he'd reached out to me and we'd made plans to ride this past Saturday. I thought that the best way to honor those plans would be to leave directly from the funeral and hit the trails in his memory.

I enlisted an old friend to help me, another pro racer who has been trying to revive his career at the ripe old age of thirty-nine. He agreed to drive me and Danger Girl to the ceremony and from there to the trails. BMX racers, as a group, don't have much sense of punctuality, but when I looked outside on Saturday morning he was pulling up two minutes early. In a brand-new, six-speed manual BMW 340i.

For most of my adult life as a cyclist, I have maintained some sort of bike-friendly vehicle in the fleet, ranging from a Saab 9-3 five-door hatch to a Nissan Frontier to a Land Rover Discovery 4.6. Each of them had particular virtues. The Disco and the Saab could swallow a bike and keep it safe behind locked doors. With the Frontier, I could ride muddy trails all day, toss the bike in the bed, and just hose it down before taking it out.

The most effective vehicle I ever had for cycling, however, was the 1996 Ford Taurus that I bought when I left the car sales business in March of that year. I had a two-bike rack on the roof and a two-bike rack on the trunk. We could fit four riders in the car comfortably, all of their gear in the trunk, and all four of the bikes whistling in the wind around us. It was a bit noisy, and it wasn't the kind of setup you could take around Laguna Seca at speed, but it was also a cheap, roomy, economical way to travel. When I was by myself, I'd pull the front wheel off the bike and toss it in the back seat.

That's how my friend Martin showed up in his new Bimmer, but after he pulled the bike out to make room for my wife he produced an old three-bike rack from the trunk and we strapped it down. Our gear went back in the trunk and it all fit. All three bikes went on the rack nice and easy. And for once in my life I was grateful for BMW's ever-more-generous approach to 3-Series sizing; we had two six-foot-two men and a five-foot-nine woman with long legs to put in the car for a 450-mile trip.

Jack Baruth

"You drive," Martin said, and he tossed me the keys.

I didn't expect much from the experience; in my opinion, small BMW sedans peaked with the E46. But Martin had specified this car in rather unusual fashion. None of the sporty stuff, most of the luxury stuff, with a manual transmission.

Five months ago, I drove an M4 GTS as part of our Performance Car of the Year testing. It cost more than twice what a 340i does, but I liked this car quite a bit better. It rode well. Quiet, even with the rack out back. We could have a conversation at 80 mph without raising our voices. It was moderately amusing to have the weather forecast on the center infotainment screen, more so because I had no plans to be in any of these places three days in the future. And on the sole occasion when I needed to use the power of the turbo six to pull out of a sticky freeway traffic situation, there was enough torque available to briefly levitate the bike rack off the trunk like Aladdin's cycling carpet.

The trails we rode were in an underground cavern in the heart of Louisville, Kentucky. We came off covered in dirt and limestone dust, and that's when I appreciated the leatherette upholstery. When in doubt, skip the leather in a German car. Particularly if it's a Benz. MB-Tex is the upholstery of God's own bench seat.

The drive home was cheerful. It was a good idea to go. Even if my knees felt like they were short a few ounces of cartilage after a few hard landings, and even if Martin did bail over some monster step-up jump and grind part of his helmet down to the shiny stuff. On the way home, we picked up my son. There was room for him, too.

At some point during the day, when I was complaining about my inability to clear some jump, Martin pointed out that I'm 45 years old and a bit heavier than I used to be, too. He's right. I was 190 pounds when I applied for my pro license in 1992. Twenty-five years later, It's like I'm carrying a 50-pound backpack now, everywhere I go. That's what happens when you stop riding eight hours a day and start working 11 hours a day at a desk.

Almost nobody really needs a 500-pound backpack that you can't take off.

If I could lose 50 pounds, I'd feel light enough to fly. It's unlikely to happen. But it's not like I need this extra weight for anything—except keeping my Neon legal for the SCCA STU class. Every pound I lose would have to be added to the passenger footwell. I could live with buying an extra 25-pound plate for the car.

The 3-Series BMW is a bit heavier than it used to be, too—3686 pounds for a 340i sedan. That's more than my dad's old 733i weighed. But here's the thing: The X3 sport-utility vehicle that sits right next to it in the showroom scales a full 500 pounds more. What do you get for that? Not much, if you ask me.

If we can put four people, three bicycles, and all our gear in a 340i sedan and travel nearly 500 miles in a day without incident, what do you need the SUV form factor for? It ain't the all-wheel-drive; BMW will sell you that in the sedan. Is it the minor additional space above the trunk? That's like a backpack. A glass backpack. That weighs 500 pounds. That you're almost certain to never use.

Martin says we're going to ride every weekend until I shape up a bit. He might get a roof rack for the car. Or we might use the trunk rack. But the great thing about both of those options is that when you take them off, you're back to a sedan that weighs 500 pounds less than the SUV. Fuel economy is better. Handling is better. Acceleration is better.

We're told every day in the automotive press that the SUV and CUV are the unavoidable future of the automobile. That sedans and coupes are yesterday's news. I don't believe it. Almost nobody really needs a 500-pound backpack that you can't take off. Not that I think people should be prevented from buying stuff they don't need; by those rules, I wouldn't be allowed to own a high-end guitar or a hang glider or, come to think of it, a stove of any type. But when there's a penalty for owning something you don't need, it's worth thinking about your choice for more than a moment.

My opinion? Ditch the backpack. Get a real car. Buy a bike rack, or a ski rack, or whatever you need to make it work. Enjoy the results. Lose weight now! Ask me how!

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