Which towbar mounted bike rack?

[francovendee]

...
One criticism is that there is no separation of the bikes and you have to devise some means of keeping them apart and getting damaged.

I just use pipe lagging. I'm sensitive about scratching my nice paint job (only on the bike, car not so important), but it's never been an issue.

Yes, the bikes are not held apart and you have to protect them as you think fit. We have pipe lagging taped on the horizontal support bars.

Jonathan

I devised separators to place on the bars between the bikes sandwich fashion. A pain to store and I used hardboard which did suffer in the rain. They lasted years and kept the forks from damaging each other. Really strong rack but our bikes did get some paint damage but not too bad.

[squeaker]

I use one of these and have been happy with it
https://www.thule.com/en-gb/bike-rack/t ... 2-_-970000

Me too, although loading 2 bikes is always an interesting 3D problem

[DurableAce]

The Thule racks are superb. Unfortunately my Euroclassic G5 is going to be surplus soon and up for sale. It takes three bikes, but doesn't fold. PM me if you might be interested. I'm in Gloucestershire.

[pwa]

Update.

Thanks to everone who gave their input here. In the end we went for Jdsk's suggested Pendle Hang On rack:
https://pbr.co.uk/collections/towbar-ra ... owbar-rack
I liked the possibility of stowing the parts away easily, and the ruggedness that goes with Pendle racks. There is minimal plastic and lots of steel on them.

The rack itself has been relatively straightforward to install. Due to the particularities of our motorhome I am able to attach two long straps (from my garage), one from each arm of the rack, angled down to go around a sub-frame extending from the chassis, which means the arms cannot bounce much. The whole ensemble is therefore very rigid even with two bikes on. I reckon I could get three on without too much of a struggle.

The one gripe has been the lighting board. It is incredibly rugged, but the LED lights don't see eye-to-eye with the old school electrics on our van. So we had to seek out a pair of old style lamps with bulbs and get a motoring electrician to fit them. I gave him the discarded LED units and he did the switch over for free. It now works.

[Mick F]

Do not mount your pride and joy on a rear-mounted rack of any sort.

Story:
Mentioned it before on this forum.

Driving south on the A38 south of Bridgwater. Rush hour PM.
Zebra crossing and we were behind a queue of traffic, and we had to stop a bit sharp. The car behind us, hit our rear tow-bar mounted rack with my precious Mercian on it.

Car wot hit us had the front end damaged a bit, and our rear rack was bent. Luckily, Mercian survived ok as it was on the forward of the two mounts. From then on, Mercian was put inside ................ and then our rear rack was scrapped.

Forget them.
Do not use one.

[Jdsk]

Thanks for the update, pwa.

When switching (!) to LEDs it’s common to need to change the indicator “relay”. Some clever systems also detect the presence of the light board and beep accordingly. They could also be affected by the type of lamp but it sounds as your van might be too old for that.

Sounds like a good solution

Jonathan