Patent ID: 8511525

Claim:
In a motor vehicle ladder rack having a pair of parallel, spaced-apart, longitudinally extending side rails and front and rear parallel, spaced-apart, transversely extending cross rails joined to the side rails, the ladder rack adapted to be affixed to the roof of the motor vehicle, the improvement comprising: (a) a spindle affixed to one of the pair of side rails at a predetermined location along a length dimension thereof forward of a midpoint of said one of the pair of side rails and to the rear of the front cross rail, said spindle projecting upwardly and outwardly at an oblique angle to a longitudinal axis of the side rail on which the spindle is affixed in a direction outboard of the vehicle roof; and (b) a cylindrical roller journaled for rotation on said spindle the arrangement being such that the spindle mounted roller functions as a rest for a front end of a ladder stringer during manual loading and unloading of a ladder onto and from the ladder rack from a position alongside of the motor vehicle.