Bike Rack

[Deekay]

Hi all, I wondered if anyone has any experiences of using a bike rack locally and whilst away on hols, pros and cons. I'm about to take possession of a VW rack for a T6.1 but wondering about the limitations it may bring with security and worries about your freedom of movement away from the van. Many thanks. David and Helen.

 

[GrumpyGranddad]

Hi all, I wondered if anyone has any experiences of using a bike rack locally and whilst away on hols, pros and cons. I'm about to take possession of a VW rack for a T6.1 but wondering about the limitations it may bring with security and worries about your freedom of movement away from the van. Many thanks. David and Helen.

We have a towbar mounted bike rack (Thule Velospace XT3). We don’t leave it on the van permanently. It normally only goes on when we go on a trip and expect to do some cycling. Depending on the destination we either leave it on the van for the duration or if going out in van for the day we might remove it and padlock it to something solid like a tree. (Or, we’ll padlock the bikes to the tree and leave the rack on the van). The only potential limitation for us is that the extra length of the rig can limit the choice when parking.
If we had a Tailgate rack, I suspect we’d leave it in place permanently.

 

[Sad]

We have a towbar mounted bike rack (Thule Velospace XT3). We don’t leave it on the van permanently. It normally only goes on when we go on a trip and expect to do some cycling. Depending on the destination we either leave it on the van for the duration or if going out in van for the day we might remove it and padlock it to something solid like a tree. (Or, we’ll padlock the bikes to the tree and leave the rack on the van). The only potential limitation for us is that the extra length of the rig can limit the choice when parking.
If we had a Tailgate rack, I suspect we’d leave it in place permanently.

View attachment 79051

Same for us on our Coast, not that we've actually had chance to use it yet!!

 

[westfalia]

We've a rack on the back door and it's always in place
apart from a few times where i've taken it off in winter
and renewed the 3m tape under the brackets.
It's a great clothes maiden too.

If you do a search on bike rack security you might find some
useful info.

 

[Deekay]

We've a rack on the back door and it's always in place
apart from a few times where i've taken it off in winter
and renewed the 3m tape under the brackets.
It's a great clothes maiden too.

If you do a search on bike rack security you might find some
useful info.

Same for us on our Coast, not that we've actually had chance to use it yet!!

We have a towbar mounted bike rack (Thule Velospace XT3). We don’t leave it on the van permanently. It normally only goes on when we go on a trip and expect to do some cycling. Depending on the destination we either leave it on the van for the duration or if going out in van for the day we might remove it and padlock it to something solid like a tree. (Or, we’ll padlock the bikes to the tree and leave the rack on the van). The only potential limitation for us is that the extra length of the rig can limit the choice when parking.
If we had a Tailgate rack, I suspect we’d leave it in place permanently.

View attachment 79051

Hi thanks for the insight. We have a tailgate mounted one awaiting collection but I have doubts about being tied to the van due to worries about security with the bikes on. Sort of defeats the object!

 

[Sad]

Other thing that took us to the towbar bike rack is the height, both for getting the bikes on & off, but can also take the overall vehicle height over 2m