Video: 2008 Honda Element

And so we're going to walk through some of the features that make it the best car for a weekend athlete, I think. Now if you read my column, you know, one of the things I always complain about is if a seat needs two hands to fold it, the Element does that. So you can see you first flip this down, pull the release here, lift and clip it in. Again, normally I don't like that, but on the Element that don't mind it so much because I'm left with all this room. This seat also folds up into the side for even more space. So as you can see with both seats folded up, there's a lot of room in here, but the big thing that I like about the Element is the surface. Very easy to clean, which is important after muddy races. So we folded the seat up, and as you can see, you have all that space. That really comes in handy, when you're dealing with a bike. Now I ride a 58 centimeter frame and that's rather large. So you do have the issue with getting the seat under this opening. As you can see it slides right in. The biggest advantage though, is actually in removing the bike. It's the easiest car I've ever had to do that with. All right, so if you're used to the column, the next test is all my camping gear. Starting with the tent, cooler, various sundries clothes, cooking gear, et cetera. And the sleeping bag. It really doesn't get much easier than that. One feature all Elements have is this backseat, front seat, bed combination. To do that, it's pretty simple. You fold the back seat down, take the front seat, fold it back. You have to make sure to have the front seat all the way forward. Now some people think, "Wow, I've got a bed. "I don't need a house." No, but if you are in a race and you have a race early in the morning and a race late in the afternoon, it's a great place to take a nap. I can tell you that from experience. Normally I worry about the load floor being too high for shorter drivers. That's not the case with the Element. I'm about 6'1" and I fit under this pretty well. But if you're about 6'3" or higher, you might find yourself hitting your head on the hatch. a couple of times. One thing I don't like about the Element is this big A pillar. It creates quite a blind spot. It's not the kind of thing you notice when driving around a parking lot, but if you're driving and you look down at the radio, when you look up, you're going to have a nasty surprise. So that's why the Element's number one in my book, I rank it a 10, and it really suits the weekend athlete the best. We're going to be expanding our rankings on Kicking Tires for the Weekend Athlete. So make sure to tune in for future blog posts. I'm Bill Jackson for cars.com. Good luck at the races. <v Announcer>For additional information on this car, or any other, go to cars.com and our blog Kicking Tires.