E-Bike and suitable rack

[alexwaite]

Choosing a bike rack comes with many different factors. In my experience I too have an ebike and with the battery in it weighs 24kg but as a previous poster says "why leave the battery in" these weigh about 4kg. You will need all your strength to lift and position an ebike onto the tailgate. Another thing to consider is when traveling with bikes on the tailgate racks if you stop somewhere and want to open up the rear door you need to remove the bikes first also remember that with bikes on you have to watch out for height restrictions too. For me having a towbar already fitted a towbar mounted bike rack was the obvious choice as these can also tilt to allow access to the rear of the van. Don't rush into buying a bike rack think about the pros and cons of all the different options. Good luck with your choice.

Great advice in this post, which is totally in alignment with my thinking. We regularly put our two e-bikes on the Altera sliding bike-rack and love it. We can get into the boot space of the Cali in an instant, and can easily lift the bikes onto the rack single handed.

 

[alexwaite]

Great advice in this post, which is totally in alignment with my thinking. We regularly put our two e-bikes on the Altera sliding bike-rack and love it. We can get into the boot space of the Cali in an instant, and can easily lift the bikes onto the rack single handed.

One possible source here, although other retailers are available: https://www.roofbox.co.uk/scripts/r...ghts_no_ar2603/Qx@w,6M42VAwp3@Rb{~cC4ure5K{W}

 

[Ian2017]

We have a Pro User Diamant SG2 Plus rather to 60kg and it has carried our 2 Cube eBikes for 5000 miles without issue. We do remove the batteries.

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Hi - I see the towbar rack is far enough away from the towball that you can mount the bikes on the inner rail whilst still keeping the rear tailgate rack in place - is this correct or is it only just long enough ? -we have a T6 “ugly” rack but hoping to be able to do same as you - do the handle bars catch on yhe rear tailgate rack ?

 

[Ting Tong]

Hi - I see the towbar rack is far enough away from the towball that you can mount the bikes on the inner rail whilst still keeping the rear tailgate rack in place - is this correct or is it only just long enough ? -we have a T6 “ugly” rack but hoping to be able to do same as you - do the handle bars catch on yhe rear tailgate rack ?

The handlebar of the inner bike is about 5cm from the VW rack but ours is a Kylie rack and your Quasi rack sticks out more. Also our ebikes are touring bikes which don’t have wide handlebars like mountain bikes. However it’s really easy to loosen and turn the inner handlebar as we used to do that when we had them on the VW rack so we could open the tailgate without it hitting the roof.

 

[CampervanTime]

We carry our ebikes on our Thule Easyfold XT2 towbar rack all the time. My wife has a Giant which the battery can be removed from and I a specialized that it can’t, but is still below 20kg. One important thing to note is overall bike length. I had a Whyte E150RS before my current Specialized in size XL. It was so long that it VERY nearly didn’t manage to fit on the rack length-wise. The wheel straps were right on the last click on both wheels and I always felt a bit nervous about it. Thule do bigger racks that don’t fold, but since I’ve changed my bike now it’s all good again.

 

[Paul_D]

We don't have a Cali yet (still looking for one!) but do have eBikes and use the Thule Easyfold XT2 for our two Kathmandu bikes and it works a treat and folds up nicely. You can buy a cover for it when it's folded for storage.

 

[dartmoordingoe]

this really helpful. we are looking at two cube e-bikes - Nuride for me and Kathmandu for my wife. the Kathmandu is a step-through type and i was wondering about the top securing bar on the rack - i guess it rotates and grabs the seat tub instead of the cross bar

It works!