Thinking about how to transport 4 bikes (2 adult and 2 kids) along on our holidays next year.
Any advice on bike racks ?
We have a Pennine Sterling and I'm not sure if I dreamt it but I thought I had seen a rack advertised somewhere that fits onto the Pennine itself ?..Anyone know if this sounds familiar ?
Otherwise I presume that I will have to fit a boot mounted rack to sit over the towbar etc ?
Pennine do make a bike rack for the rear of their units, but I think they only carry two bikes. You may have to consider a combination of bike rack and roof carrier to be able to carry 4 bikes. I'm not sure if a bike rack on the tow-bar would leave enough clearance between the bikes and the trailer body when cornering - I am sure there is someone on here who knows the answer though.
Your problem is similar to ours. We are a biking family of three daughters and two adults. We have a Penine Sterling towed by a MPV Citroen. We travel a lot to France. We have a bike carrier that can carry three adult bikes but its a big haul with a folding caravan in tow.
We did see a Penine owner last summer who had four bikes strapped to the top of the camper which would make wieght distribution a lot easier. He took off the pedals and adjusted the handlebars so that the bikes were able to lie very flat - two at the bottom and two on top. We might try this next summer. As already stated I suspect the Penine bike carrier only does two bikes. I enquired last year and was under the impression that they stopped making them.
We use to have a Conway Cruiser up until a couple of years ago, and we bought Conways full rack that fitted the Cruiser, there is plenty of room to carry four Cycles on it, at one time we carried 2 cycles and a canoe, you may have to watch the weight though, depends upon how much you have packed in the interior of your Camper, as the Pennines are very similar to the Conways, and Pennine now own Conways I understand, you may find a purpose built rack available to fit your unit, anyway best of luck,
Rgeards Jon
------------- The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in the dark
I'd get a proper rack for the car roof. Halfords do them and its worth the cost and then the weight is no problem. One big advantage is that you would have provision for locking the bikes to the rack. Use the locks!!!! We had a fairly casual attitude on campsites but lost a bike at a site near Paris some time ago. Of course it had to be my 9 year old boy's bike, all personalised with stuff he had put on it. It ruined his holiday. The stupid thing was, it would have been easier for them to nick my ferociously expensive Cannondale rather than his fairly inexpensive Giant.
We had a pennine Pathfinder and caried 4 bikes on the pennine rack at the back of the trailer with no problems. We Sold the rack about 4 months ago on ebay. I believe from Pennine they cost about £150.
I had forgotton completely about a roof rack for the bikes.
We do have a roof box which we previously used before we bought the Pennine.If there is enough room inside the FC to store all of the stuff that went in there,then we could try a roof rack instead.
What a pain that we have to worry about the bikes not getting nicked so much...
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Topic: Advice on Bike Racks
