I'm going bananas getting 3 modern MTBs on my Thule Velospace XT3. It nearly finished me off on my last weekend away. The Epos seems to be the bee knees in this area but it seems that tailgate clearance (I have a Renault Trafic van) is not great.
I have measured and the centre of my towbar "ball" is 175mm behind the fully closed tailgate. The tailgate when opening is 110mm above the towbar when it passes the centreline but I can't see any info how high a tilted Epos 3 is through the tailgate "sweep". I had to put my Velospace XT3 into the "furthest tilt" position by moving the cables, but I gather that's not an adjustment that the Epos has.
Anyone have an Epos and a Trafic, or an Epos and can measure some stuff in relation to the towbar centre (specifically, how far behind and how high above is the closest point on the tilted rack - including bars, though I could work around that by turning them...). With that info I could mock something up and measure the clearance myself.
Any help or measurements much appreciated.
I can’t answer the question. But as I could do with knowing which tow bar mounted bike rack will tilt enough to work with a T6 here is a free bump
I'm sure I saw a YouTube video where an Epos owner drilled a hole in his rack to move the safety cable in order to give it enough clearance for a van tailgate. I'm not sure I fancy drilling a £1K rack.....
Thanks - that's useful. Yes, I'd be loathe to take a drill to a new 1k EUR rack too - the Velospace has two mounting points for the cable that achieves exactly what that chap has achieved - strange it's not an option on the latest and greatest...
The video also confirms that I think there's no chance of it clearing without some sort of butchery... I've just saved myself a grand... at the cost of an awful lot of faffing about when we take all 3 bikes 🙁
I'm going bananas getting 3 modern MTBs on my Thule Velospace XT3.
Is there a particular issue? I have one have got those and whilst it tales some puzzling I have never failed.
One of these is very useful:
I'm going bananas getting 3 modern MTBs on my Thule Velospace XT3.
Is there a particular issue? I have one have got those and whilst it tales some puzzling I have never failed.
One of these is very useful:
I have one of those too. It helps. The main issue is the width and the length of some of my bikes. It basically means that forks, derailleurs always end up rubbing or fouling on one another, and carbon frames mean clamping options are limited, and they always end up being clampable only in a position where the clamping arm needs to fit on the "bend" of the U-frame at the front (back..) of the rack. It just takes me an hour to load up. when I do it regularly with the same set of bikes I kinda get a feel for where they can fit together the best, but swap one of those bikes out and I'm back to loading/trying/unloading/moving/loading/trying again... Many of the battle scars on my DH bike are actually from other bikes on the rack, not actually riding it 🙁
Is it only me that finds 3 MTBs on a Velospace XT3 to be a squeeze?
not much help, but the doors on my Vito hit the clamp handle when swinging open on my EPOS3, I owned the rack before the Van, its slightly annoying.... But as I only rarely want to transport the bikes on a rack and not in the van, its an occasional annoyance rather than the end of the world to me.
I have one of those too. It helps. The main issue is the width and the length of some of my bikes. It basically means that forks, derailleurs always end up rubbing or fouling on one another, and carbon frames mean clamping options are limited, and they always end up being clampable only in a position where the clamping arm needs to fit on the "bend" of the U-frame at the front (back..) of the rack. It just takes me an hour to load up. when I do it regularly with the same set of bikes I kinda get a feel for where they can fit together the best, but swap one of those bikes out and I'm back to loading/trying/unloading/moving/loading/trying again... Many of the battle scars on my DH bike are actually from other bikes on the rack, not actually riding it
Is it only me that finds 3 MTBs on a Velospace XT3 to be a squeeze?
No it's not just you.
2 bikes with a gap between is easy peasy but 3 bikes is tricky due to the lack of gap between bikes. Once you have it sussed, take pics for next time.
These (along with pipe lagging) help with the rubbing:
https://muc-off.com/products/disc-brake-covers-bolt
On the T6 forum lots of tailgate users have found issues with certain racks. I also have a T6 with a tailgate.
I use an Atera Strada DL3 with a 4th bike adapter. Clears the tailgate just fine, although it's a faff to load 4 bikes on. Thankfully I rarely do that and mostly just put 2 in the back
I used to have the Atera Strada Evo on a big estate. That was probably a better carrier, not sure if it will work with a van tailgate, the DL3 is apparently slighter better. I sold the Evo, then bought a van, then had a towbar fitted so bought another rack...
