What Do You Use Your Tow Bar For?

[daz60]

put all the camping kit in, and more

 

[Goldie]

Ha!

Forgot I started this thread a couple of years ago! My tow bar gets much more use of here in in NZ. On weekends my Beach is the vehicle of choice given it's height, space and carrying capacity, plus ease of parking. The Yeti is now the wife's run around and used for the occasional trip into Wellington. Goldstar, bike trailer and Erde 142 trailer all ended coming to NZ with me and get plenty of use.

Goldie

 

[Pete M]

I've got a neat little converter to change my Westafalia removable swan neck into a more useful "flange" towbar.

I use the "flange" for single bikes on the frame and the swan neck for towing my trailer with more bikes.

I also have one of the Thule back racks + waterproof carry bags for taking loads of extra kit when we go skiing. Will probably rest ski bases on the back rack and cable tie them to the bike rack.

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How do you carry your skis? We're in and out of the tailgate a lot when we're skiing so a little worried about a tow bar mount but we use a roof cover so roof mount is out of the question!

 

[Gavinskii]

How do you carry your skis? We're in and out of the tailgate a lot when we're skiing so a little worried about a tow bar mount but we use a roof cover so roof mount is out of the question!

There is actually a ski holder inside the Cali. Under the bench seat to the left hand side (closest to the kitchen) is a plastic panel which clips out. This allows you to slide the skis in through the tailgate. In fairness, with todays "fatter" skis, I could only manage to fit 3 pairs in the holder and had a 4th set diagonally on the boot floor.
NB. On this occasion we rented an apartment and just used the Cali as our transport vehicle - so it was virtually empty. However in a previous year, when just 2 or us went we used the Cali to camp in too (but the campsite had a heated ski and boot room and we just used the free naïveté to get to the lifts each morning.
Another option I considered for transporting the skis was to use sturdy cable ties to secure the skis to the fitted bike rack ( however this extra weight would have caused issues if we needed to access the boot during transit, due to the additional weight).

 

[Pete M]

There is actually a ski holder inside the Cali. Under the bench seat to the left hand side (closest to the kitchen) is a plastic panel which clips out. This allows you to slide the skis in through the tailgate. In fairness, with todays "fatter" skis, I could only manage to fit 3 pairs in the holder and had a 4th set diagonally on the boot floor.
NB. On this occasion we rented an apartment and just used the Cali as our transport vehicle - so it was virtually empty. However in a previous year, when just 2 or us went we used the Cali to camp in too (but the campsite had a heated ski and boot room and we just used the free naïveté to get to the lifts each morning.
Another option I considered for transporting the skis was to use sturdy cable ties to secure the skis to the fitted bike rack ( however this extra weight would have caused issues if we needed to access the boot during transit, due to the additional weight).

We've been using the indoor option which is OK to transport but at night just chaining them to the spare wheel bracket, digging them out in the morning was a pain and with them laying on the tarmac floor the edges got really iced up and we have to spend time scraping them before we can ride which you can do without at -10
I've got a 3 bike rack which I think I'll look into getting brackets made for and that way I could fit a box to it as well.

 

[AlanC]

Not the cheapest option, but designed for the job with end extension for longer skis if needed.

Made by MFT in Germany. http://www.mft.systems/

The VW bike rack will sit above and the whole box clears the tailgate easily.