Bike Carrier Blues
My family and I soon are heading out on a 6-7 week trip in our 5th wheel. We have purchased five really great folding bikes (37.7 pounds each)and want to take them along. After hours and hours of lo...
Forum Discussion
Need-A-Vacation wrote:
DazedNConfused,
Have you noticed any issues with the truck running warmer with the bikes up front? Any issues when backing into campsites due to the extra front end length? Looks like 4 bikes total? I have thought going this route myself
Sorry for the delay. I have used this setup in the hot NC summer and have never had a cooling problem...nor have I noticed temps above what they normally are. There was one campground that have obstacles opposite the entrance to where I needed back in and I needed to remove the bikes. But this type of bike rack makes it VERY quick to attach or remove the bikes. Bikes were off in about 90 seconds...and the rack would quick fold up against the truck and within 2 minutes I was ready to rock. I had two choices for mounting the hitch. First was receiver below the air dam. That put the bikes lower and as you can see from the pics, they are not at all in my line of site. Second would be to flip the hitch upside down before mounting -- but you'd have to cut a hole in the air dam for the receiver to poke through. That would raise the receive about 2" or so.
So far the lower position has not caused any issues...and there hasn't been an approach angle that has caused me to fold the rack up. The hitch was cheap, pretty simple to install, and you're off to the races. My wife thought I was nuts when I told her I was adding another 5 feet to the front of my truck with the bike rack. Told her she doesn't have any voting power until she starts driving the truck/fiver. :)
