Paddywack
Free Member
A couple of folks have pm'd me following my post in the "Bike Safety" thread about the make of the "rack" I use to carry the bike, rather than answer individually I thought I would share in case others are considering other options.
This our first MH and like most we spent a ridiculous amount of time weighing up options, as we all know its a compromise. We finally settled on a PVC as I need to carry sea kayaks on the roof and a PV gave me the most secure anchoring. The other dilemma was bikes, we had spent the last thirty years with them hanging off the back of the estate car when camping and felt limited as to where we could park even though they were secured with good locks, so a garage was another requirement.
With the kayaks there is a lot of other cr!p needed so the bikes couldn't fill the garage, there is also the wine allowance. So the quest was to fit two bikes in a limited space without putting the bed above at a level requiring oxygen tanks. Solution was to store bikes with front wheel (length) and saddle off (height) longways in the van under the fixed bed. New van was duly ordered from Moto-Trek (that's another story / thread) with the garage the right size to fit my biggest road bike that has an integrated seat post which poses problems for height - although I realised afterwards it would probably been easier to sell that and buy a new bike with a normal seat post - doh!
So last September took the new van to the Mossel for a couple of weeks holiday to test our new arrangement - no kayaks so the garage half empty.
The wood was to protect the floor and provide an anchor for the front fork holders, two of these Broken Link Removed
which are mounted at opposite ends of the board. (I got them off ebay for a £10). The bikes are mounted with the saddles and front wheels off, wheels in the wheel bag on left saddles and seat posts between the bikes.
All worked well with the above arrangement but it was a bit of a chew on having to unload other kit to get the bikes out. Solution was to fit bikes on a slide. I finally sourced some that could be mounted flat a DZ 9301 which only require a space of 19.1mm, can cope with a load of 44.5kg when flat mounted, they also have a 100% extension and come in various lengths I went for 1m at the ridiculous cost of £250. Not cheap but I intend to keep the van for 10 years plus in the scheme of things not too bad. Then it was just a case of a sheet of 4mm aluminium from a mate, and put the lot together. I chickend out here and as the van was going back to Moto-Trek for some (ahem) snagging issues I got them to do the drilling through the floor.
Results here:
And with the bikes, very happy with the results, it has survived contact and use in the real world and seems to work well.
Any questions feel free to ask.
This our first MH and like most we spent a ridiculous amount of time weighing up options, as we all know its a compromise. We finally settled on a PVC as I need to carry sea kayaks on the roof and a PV gave me the most secure anchoring. The other dilemma was bikes, we had spent the last thirty years with them hanging off the back of the estate car when camping and felt limited as to where we could park even though they were secured with good locks, so a garage was another requirement.
With the kayaks there is a lot of other cr!p needed so the bikes couldn't fill the garage, there is also the wine allowance. So the quest was to fit two bikes in a limited space without putting the bed above at a level requiring oxygen tanks. Solution was to store bikes with front wheel (length) and saddle off (height) longways in the van under the fixed bed. New van was duly ordered from Moto-Trek (that's another story / thread) with the garage the right size to fit my biggest road bike that has an integrated seat post which poses problems for height - although I realised afterwards it would probably been easier to sell that and buy a new bike with a normal seat post - doh!
So last September took the new van to the Mossel for a couple of weeks holiday to test our new arrangement - no kayaks so the garage half empty.
The wood was to protect the floor and provide an anchor for the front fork holders, two of these Broken Link Removed
which are mounted at opposite ends of the board. (I got them off ebay for a £10). The bikes are mounted with the saddles and front wheels off, wheels in the wheel bag on left saddles and seat posts between the bikes.
All worked well with the above arrangement but it was a bit of a chew on having to unload other kit to get the bikes out. Solution was to fit bikes on a slide. I finally sourced some that could be mounted flat a DZ 9301 which only require a space of 19.1mm, can cope with a load of 44.5kg when flat mounted, they also have a 100% extension and come in various lengths I went for 1m at the ridiculous cost of £250. Not cheap but I intend to keep the van for 10 years plus in the scheme of things not too bad. Then it was just a case of a sheet of 4mm aluminium from a mate, and put the lot together. I chickend out here and as the van was going back to Moto-Trek for some (ahem) snagging issues I got them to do the drilling through the floor.
Results here:
And with the bikes, very happy with the results, it has survived contact and use in the real world and seems to work well.
Any questions feel free to ask.
