Ladder mounted bike rack

[mjanulaitis]

I'm looking at purchasing a ladder mounted bike rack. So far I've only found 2 brands, Topline and Masterbuilt. I found some opinions on the Masterbuilt product. For the most part they stated the product was cheap. Several the the opinions stated their ladders bent and the bikes were very unstable. Well I can only imaging the ladders that bent were on old RVs. They have to support a 250 lbs person right? So why would 60-80 lbs of bikes bend the ladder? I don't know how much force is applied to the ladder when you hit bumps but I can't imagine it's more than 2 times the weight (let alone 3). Anyway as far as movement goes, I would bungy up the bikes and add copper pipe insulation tubing to the ladder. Seems like that would work quite well. I'd probably have to tape of the insulation...better yet use ties so they don't get damaged when removing the tape. Anyway comments on these products would be appreaciated.

On a side note, I've heard a few blurbs about roof mounted racks. Yes my RV has rain gutters, but as I recall back in the old days when cars had rain gutters, the racks stripped the paint and bent the gutters. Lastly, don't I have to to worry about height? I guess I assumed bikes mounted vertically would be too high for overpasses.

 

[Tom]

Some folks here use racks mounted on the roof of their car being towed behind the motorhome. For sure, there's not enough clearance for you to mount bikes on the roof of the coach.

 

[John From Detroit]

I use a hitch rack, there are several types,  The one I use can be seen is simular to this one
(The link is to the camping world web site)


Hitch Mounted Bike Rack

Note, this is not one of the better hitch mounted bike racks in my opinion  The one I have comes in three models, one is simular to the rregular bike rack (the link is to the towing model) one slips over a 2 inch receiver bar and clamps on, it does NOT extend your hitch and the 3rd bolts to a standard trailer hitch adapter (either 2 inch or 1 1/4 inch) which is how mine is mounted

 

[mjanulaitis]

I've got a boat taking up the hitch.

 

[Tom]

I've seen hitch-mounted bike racks where the part that slips into the receiver has another receiver on the other end to accomodate a tow ball for towing the boat. Best of both worlds.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

The ladders can bend because the bikes, hanging on a rack that extends perpendicular to the ladder, have a lot of leverage. When you lurch through a pothole or over a RR track, the 60-80 lbs of bike is at the end of a lever that yanks the ladder sideways.  The ladders are designed to support weight on the rungs but ar enot all that rigid when subjecetd to a sharp pull outward.  I don't think that's a common problem, though. I see a lot of bikes (and other stuff) carried on ladder mounts.  We carry a step ladder on ours, but it hangs in close to the roof ladder - not much of  a lever action and the ladder weighs onlyabout 20 lbs.

 

[Mblaster]

I've seen hitch-mounted bike racks where the part that slips into the receiver has another receiver on the other end to accomodate a tow ball for towing the boat. Best of both worlds.

Thats what I use.

 

[Tom]

Do you happen to have a photo that you could share with us? Makes it much easier to explain if folks can see a photo.

Thanks.

 

[JohnSandyWhite]

Hi mjanulaitis. We bought one from Camping World for the bikes we bought from Walmart on our tour of the USA. They work very well indeed. But you may need to be pretty good at balancing to tie them down.? ;D ;D Masterbuilt:-

http://tinyurl.com/rswcz