Bike Rack

We looked at adding a bike rack to the rear of the van, as the the rear bar already came with a tow ball adaptor specifically for bike racks. However, after discussion with the manufacturer and a rack supplier we decided to go with a front drawbar mounted rack. The rack supplier stated warranties were void for rear caravan mounts, and the van supplier said any chassis warranties would be void.

So after looking around at a few we decided on the Grip Sport folding rack, with a tow bar adaptor. This allows us to relocate the rack from the van to the car to take to bikes to more remote locations as a starting point.

The rack comes with a steel beam and chassis brackets, the idea being you have the beam welded at the required length to the brackets, then they slip down over the draw bar and clamp on. However, due to the lack of space it was decided to weld the beam directly to the chassis – a great job was done by Lawrence RV in Brendale QLD.

The rack mounts just in front of the gas bottles, but positions the bikes further back over the front tool box. The folding allows them to remain attached and fold the rack forward to get easy access to the tool box if required.

UPDATE: September 2022.

You may have noticed in he first picture at the top of the page I have straps from the centre bar of the rack back to the handles on the front of the van each side. This was to reduce the wobble while driving as it annoyed me in the mirror and I was concerned about fatigue in the metal post.

After the van travelling around 12,000 km since the rack was installed, some of them quite bumpy, I was still not overly happy with the flexing in the rack mounting pole, even with the straps. Looking to do something to help support and reduce flex, I had some strong galvanised tent poles that had been modified to hold the awning at a short set length that I had never used (given to me), so I thought I might try to repurpose them and use them as supports under the ends of the rack. Huge difference, wobble is completely gone and the bikes are much more stable.

Both ends had been shortened, flattened and hole drilled to put a bolt through already, so all I had to do was place one end I under a bolt for the gas bottle, the other end is currently just sitting in the wheel holders. I was planning to drill a hole in the wheel holder and use a wing nut but after 1000km they haven’t moved so probably wont bother.