Hi,

Looking at new vans – one i looked at today has rear barn doors and while you can get door mounted racks they are a bit shit.

Whats the score with tow bar racks? do you need to take em off when not in use? can they fold up out of hte way and stay on teh van?

I`ve come from a tailgate fiamma which is brill so i have no idea.

any real world experience?

cheers,

mark

Yes, you need to take them off really – they make the rear of the vehicle very long.

With a van I’d be worried about parking with no bikes on the rack unless you have a rear camera as the rack would be invisible.

Thule do a folding one that you could store in the van I guess, the full size ones take up a fair amount of space even stored vertically.

I’ve got an Atera Strada DL for use on a van with barn doors.

It’s a good solid rack that slides out of the way so you can open the doors. My wife reversed it into a tree, it’s a bit bent but amazingly still slides so it is robust.

It doesn’t fold out of the way when not in use. It’s really quick to fit and remove so not really a big deal to remove. I guess that’s the main advantage of tow ball racks, it’s really easy to fit them consistently and quickly without damaging anything.

The negative I’d say is that the bikes get covered on road crap in winter. The wheels are quite close to the exhaust on my van so I think the rotors do get a bit of greasy film on them after long journeys.

Personally I’d wait for a tailgate mounted van. that’s what I did. I waited months for a tailgate van in the spec and price range I wanted to come along.

Tow bar mounted racks make the vehicle no longer than higher mounted racks, but with them being higher means they’re a little more convenient for parking. I only use my external tailgate mounted rack when carrying more than 2 bikes. For unto 2 bikes they go inside.

Tow bar mounted racks are great but I really only used mine for long journeys rather than week in week out duty as they are a bit of a faff and not convenient for car parks and general driving around.

Those Pendle slot in arm towbar bike racks are good, really stable, and just take arms off to store etc. Use on my (barn door) van occasionally when needed i.e. when full of other stuff/people inside that can’t get bikes in. Expensive new but come up on gumtree/ebay locally often for about £30 with the socket bracket. You can still use the towbar with these.
http://www.pendle-bike.co.uk/shopping/hang-on-tb-rack.php

Towbar mounted rack. We took 3 Dh bikes to Italy on it.

It survived. It was great actually but I’ve said we need 1 on the roof this year. 3 was too much for it.

So consensus is a bit meh.

I used my fiamma all the time as it was easy. Any taking off and on will consign it to the shed for most of the time

I’ve a flange mounted rack (Aiston). Brilliant rack but I’d have one of those fold up racks that bolts to the door if I had a van to miss out having to store it when not used.

Its obscenely strong though, I (100kg, the equivalent of 8 bikes) used to stand on the end of it to reach the barrage roof!

Pros:
No heavy lifting
No mud in the car
No mud on the roof
No worries with car park barriers
No impact on mpg
No damage to the car from dropped bikes.

Cons
Has to be stored somewhere.
Some people reckon you get contaminated brakes but I’ve never noticed it.

x2 for the Aiston, shame Bryan no longer seems to be making them. Not that much hassle to fit but as said not great for day to day.

If you want fully integrated then fiamma type is the way to go, but you will probably be restricted to the type of van.

Witter do one that folds up, but then you will block the doors from opening.

Taking the towbar racks on and off varies a lot. Some require a lot of force and tools, where others are light and simple.

Small guide might help. Bike rack options