Bike racks

[Scott Jayfeather]

Good Day,

New to the forum. We have a 2006 20’ Jayfeather.

Was looking for some advice on a bike rack. The only thing I see for a rear mounted bike rack showed that I require a continuous 4” bumper. I have that 4” x 2” C channel bumper. Was wondering if anyone had a suggestion if there was anything I could do using that bumper or my spare which is fastened to the rear of the trailer.

Scott

[DocBrown]

Check your manual but most of these are only rated for 100#. People have reported putting one of those racks on just tears off the 4" bumper. There is not much holding it one.

Some have had a trailer hitch welded to the frame. Even if you do that there will be a lot of bouncing back there. The only hitch bike I know of that's rated for RV use are some of the Swagmans, like this one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Vicr]

You might get more responses if you posted in travel trailers and not Class A.

[Midnightmoon]

Originally Posted by Vicr

You might get more responses if you posted in travel trailers and not Class A.

I will move it for them.

[S.Fleckio]

I was hoping to bolt in this receiver hitch to the frame of my 174BH. I was wondering if anyone else has done anything similar and what kind of luck they've had.

[bankr63]

My suggestion is that neither the bumper or most commercial racks are rated for that kind of use. Most manufacturers prohibit the use of their racks in RV applications because of the kinds of forces generated on a rear-mount situation. The whip effect from being that far behind the back wheels can tear bumpers off and mangle bike racks. Remember sitting at the back of the school bus when it went over bumps?

Arvika (the original) and now Stromberg Carlson (and now Lippert as well) make tongue mount jacks. The ride over the A frame is generally much better than at the back. I personally use an Arvika 2" receiver mount for the A-frame with a Thule rack. Works great for us, but does jack up the tongue weight a bit (the point load is about 3' back from the ball, so maybe 75% of the weight is on the tongue). The advantage of the receiver over a dedicated rack is that once we are setup at the destination, I can flip the rack back around onto the truck and head out to a trailhead.

[RogerR]

How hard is it to mount and dismount the bikes. I have a jeep so no tailgate and I don't carry a folding ladder or have a place for one.

[S.Fleckio]

I had the tongue mount rack before, I thought it was kind of a pain to load and unload the bikes (I had a 4-bike mount). Also, when I was backing into a tight spot with a sharp turn, the bars of the tongue mount actually contacted and broke one of my taillights. Thats why I'm hoping to find some option to mount in the rear of the trailer.

[crockettlarry]

I had a bike rack that mounted above the hitch of my previous trailer, which was a hybrid. It got the job done but I basically hated it. I couldn't load the bikes the night before because it got in the way of hooking up to the trailer if the wifey had not pulled in the hybrid beds yet when we were breaking camp. And I was always nervous about sharp turns causing damage to the trailer or truck.

This Time Around and also because I now have a Pro Pride hitch, I decided to put a hitch on the front of my truck. So I use a 4 bike rack on my front receiver hitch. It's a little distracting but I'm getting used to it and it is really easy to load and unload and it is irrelevant as to whether we are breaking camp or not. Very easy to install. I would highly recommend considering it. I did research on potential overheating issues and there were lots of people that had done it without issue.

Larry

[bankr63]

Originally Posted by RogerR

How hard is it to mount and dismount the bikes. I have a jeep so no tailgate and I don't carry a folding ladder or have a place for one.

So I don't find it that difficult on mine at all, but I am 6'2". DW at 5'8" helps, and she does have to tippie-toe to pull the top yoke down on the cross bar, but can reach the wheel straps fine.

I think the comment about pre-loading on a hybrid would be exactly the same on a bumper mount, you can't load bikes on a rack back there either if the bunks are down. Note though that the hybrid adds a step as I do have to pop off the rack (not the receiver) to drop the bunk.

The setup completely cleared the back of the Traverse in turns (first picture above) but I did put a couple of dimples in the tailgate of the Titan on our first outing while backing into a site (very tight turn). The receiver mount is height adjustable though, so I just moved it up a bit to clear the truck bed now, no problem. Two big hand screws are used for this, no tools required.