yakima roof rack

You have approximately 58" from where the front bar attaches to the raised hatch. What is the length of the Sprocket Rocket?

I do both roof bike carrying as well as using a hitch mount. If I could put 4 bikes on the hitch without issue, I would go that way, but that's a personal preference. All the ways of carrying a bike outside the car have pros and cons. The roof is worst for fuel economy, noise, set-up time and loading convenience and the possibility of your bike hitting a low obstruction (parking garage etc.). The primary negative with the hitch is the possibility of you or someone else hitting the bikes and the bikes partially obstruct your lights which has a safety aspect. Depending on the hitch rack you choose, it may or may not allow easy access to the hatch and some can be difficult to arrange the bikes and some may allow the bikes to bang against each other. Other hitch carriers address these issues. At it's best, a hitch carrier can be very convenient going from everything being in the garage to on the car (including 2 bikes) in less than 5 minutes.

 

As an alternative, Darelldd came up with a solution to keep the hatch from hitting anything roof mounted: http://darelldd.com/ev/prius_racks.htm#saris

scroll down a bit (i think it's the 3 or 4 picture) and you'll see it.