Swings and bike racks

In the February issue, a reader’s letter titled Swings and bike racks from Mike Ayres explained what he thought to be a good solution to the excessive movement of towbar-mounted bike racks whilst travelling.

Firstly, I agree with him completely in that I also feel that the amount of movement is excessive. Alarming even.

However, his solution to affix cargo straps to the top hinge brackets and then to the bikes on the rack is probably not a sensible solution.

In the short term, this link from the bikes to the bodyshell of the ’van will indeed lessen the swaying and jumping about which occurs. But the root of the problem isn’t that the bikes are moving, and thus require stabilising, but that the structure of the bike rack is flexing in all directions. This worrying movement of the rack is also worsened by a small amount of ‘play’ on the Memo Van-Swing bar at the towbarmounting point.

If the straps were fixed to the hinge mountings and then to the most rigid part of the bike rack then this may provide some additional stability. I had previously considered this idea (amongst others), but the only suitably rigid place on the rack is the central steel U-shaped frame, and this would not really be of benefit as a result of it being so narrow, and the main cause of the flexing on the outer components.

If the bike racks had rigid steel wheel mountings fastened to the big central tube, this would help, but they don’t.

Access for the straps is also complicated by the bikes being positioned above the central steel bar, and covered by a plastic moulding.

However, the main reason why I’m advising that Mr Ayres’ method of reducing the movement should not be used is that by fixing the straps to the bikes, this could very easily damage the bike or bikes themselves. This is perfectly possible because, in the process of tightening the cargo straps sufficiently to make any difference to the flexing of the rack, and the movement in the Memo bar, meaning that all the stress of doing so is then transferred to the bikes.

Bikes are not designed for stress in these ways. The rack will still be attempting to move and flex, but the bikes and especially the wheels, will then be a conduit for the stress.

My latest idea to provide a bit of peace of mind does involve a cargo strap, but only as a last-ditch attempt to stop the rack (plus bikes) falling off completely and causing injury or damage to following traffic and their passengers.

I think I may have come up with an idea that will eliminate the slack in the Memo bar coupling, but haven’t had yet had chance to test it in sustained suitably bad conditions to be completely sure.

I will let it be known if it does the job. Basically, it involves a very stiff rubber mounting on the towbar end of the coupling.

Keep the ideas coming, though, for someone, somewhere might have the solution.

Andy Stothert