Bike racks for caravanning

Thanks everyone for advice and comments.

Also have e-bike and unlike some of you, no longer able to lift onto roof rack, so if there is anyone out there who has used a rear fitting car rack would be interested in your comments.

We are regular cyclists when away in our caravan, and as such have taken a lot of care to keep safe.

Firstly, your towbar will have been type approved, as required by law. It is almost certain, that the manufacturer will tell you that sandwiching anything between the bar and the ball, negates their type approval. In short, it’s illegal.

If you add weight in the form of a bike carrier and bikes, to your towbar, then you need to deduct that weight from the car’s hitch weight limit. That reduction will reduce the caravan’s nose weight available to a point where towing stability is compromised. In short, it has the potential  to increase snaking risk.

You can only fit a carrier to to the rear of your van, if you can find strongpoint, whichever are by no means, commonly provided.

You can carry your bikes inside the caravan, at the expense of using up some of its permitted payload. It’s difficult enough to stay legal on that point, without the additional burden of bikes.

If your car has enough space to carry bikes inside, then it’s a safe option. You’ll probably need to remove the front wheel. The more confident you are, at bike dismantling, the easier they will be to transport inside.

Spending out on roof bars and bike racks is expensive but safe, though hoisting them up can become harder as you age. A second consideration arises with the increase in affordable carbon bike frames, which shouldn’t be clamped. Your fixings need to be applied to the wheels only.

The tyres on off road bikes are often one of their heaviest elements. Carrying the wheels in your car, with the awkwardly shaped frames in your caravan, might be an acceptable compromise for you.

In Utopia, you’ll have lightweight bikes, carried on the roof with lifting aided by a step at sill level on your 4WD. And you’ll be young and fit too!

A few years ago we were staying on a site in Germany. The family opposite us had a tandem and a single bike and were OAPs. They had the tandem as they had a disabled daughter with them.

When they came to leave they used a Cantilevered hoist to do all the lifting of the bikes to the roof of the car. They did not assist in any way apart from placing the bikes into the roof mounted carrier grooves. Once the bikes were in place they dismantled the hoist. 

I cannot find anything on the web apart from something on the Patent office webpages yet I know one exists. This would be about 5 years ago.

Maybe if Lutz reads this thread he might know of such a device in Germany. I don't know if the area we were staying makes any difference but it was the Spreewald, about 80 miles south of Berlin.

We have a Witter ZX99 bike rack that fits on a plate at the back of the towball. We have used it on several makes of cars including Ford SMax and Ford Kuga with no problems manoeuvring the caravan. We have 2 full sized eBikes total weight around 44 Kg for the pair. The only issue we had was that you can't get into the boot of the car with the bikes in place, no big deal when staying for more than 1 night as the bikes were taken off.

We used to carry the ebikes on the back of our Kia Sedona, the rack clamped onto the top and bottom of the tailgate and had 2 rails that bikes sat in. When we moved to the SMax we couldn't use that rack as the tailgate couldn't take the weight, so we moved to the ZX99. 

It appears that BMW used to do a "Bicycle Lift/Hoist". but I can't find any info on it now.

That's exactly what we saw Vulcan. The owner had a BMW as well. It certainly did the job.

Thanks Tammygirl will have a look at a Witter.

We have one e bike and one ordinary so this could work. Weight is not an issue, my concern is the manoeuvrability (if that’s a word) and space between car and caravan - there are so many conflicting comments.

Can I ask what caravan you have? 

And a bit thank you to everyone else who has commented. I have googled every suggested option, watched loads of videos and read lots of specs. Many thanks.

We currently have a Coachman caravan. We have also used the Witter with Lunar and Elddis caravans. 

My OH says it can depend on how/where your bikes sit on the rack, ours sit quite high due to the way the frame is. If the bikes sit low then you can get an adjustable cross bar to fit to the bike frame which lifts the bike to a higher position.

Thanks Tammygirl, that is very useful.  Food for thought.