Suggestion for all -- this really works!!

Rather than lose all your frontal aerodynamics, putting your bikes up front,
here's a suggestion.
Order the two strongest -- most resistance--rear hatch struts from Gowesty.
They're excellent - I have a pair and their lift power is impressive.
Then, take one of your old struts off and take it to a hardware store. Get
some plastic PVC piping and cut a pair of pieces of PVC so that they fit the
shafts of your struts on both sides.   About 3/4 of an inch diameter should do
it. Length should be just short of the metal shafts on your struts.
Then, when you put on your strong shafts, put the PVC pipe on each of your
struts, with VELCRO on one to hold it up so that they dont' both fall down when
you raise the hatch.
Then, put your bikes on the back as you normally would.
Then, try raising your hatch .Voila, magically, one pvc pipe will fall into
place and hold your strut up.
Then, take the one with velcro fixed to it, and manually lower it onto the
metal shaft on the other strut.
Voila, you have an automatic hatch locking ssytem that will easily hold your
bikes on the rear hatch and will hold the rear hatch up.
Sure you've got to use some HP to lift them, but not too much.
Have I made this clear enough? It really works well. Basically you just have
to have the struts held up by the pieces of PVC on each strut.
Let me know if you want a pic.
Dixon