Concern with attaching bike rack to TT bumper

wmoses wrote:

Bigbird65 wrote:
OK, as an alternative to the bumper mount, give me your opinion of the ladder mount. Specifically a Swagman 2 bike mount.

For some reason it would appear that not many people who post on these forums have experience with ladder-mounted racks hence the lack of response to your query.

The Swagman 2-bike rack is similar to the one I bought from CW (possibly the same design) and funnily enough my ladder looks very similar to the one in the picture you included. I guess if you are asking the question then that was not your picture.

Anyway I have not made my first trip with that rack yet so I cannot comment on performance. I can say that my ladder appears strong enough, and the loading on it would be less onerous than that on a bumper mount. The CG of the bikes are closer to the ladder and the ladder support points are more spread out so the load is "flatter" to the RV and more in shear. Should perform well. The trick is to properly secure the bikes so that they (a) stay on, and (b) don't damage each other or the RV.

I will post my results after I have actual experience.

These bikes are on my trailer but at the time of posting I had not been on a trip to judge the bike rack performance. This week we made a 3 day long camping trip to Cedar Hill State Park in Texas. When we got there the bikes were exactly like they were when we left home and same for when we returned home. I'm completely satisfied with the bike rack. I used a number of the small bungees to stabilize everything.