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Ruth you might have been OK with 2 bikes but if its 3 adult bikes you could be in trouble with MAXXRAXX.

Popular family hatches have a nose weight ( downforce on the towball ) of around 75kg. The trailer needs to be balanced to give a downforce at the towball of 7% of its all up weight and load. THIS all sounds like dead nasty over complex crud ... but hang in there.

3 bikes will be say 45 kg and the MaxxRaxx weighs about 12kg so that is already 57kg . If the trailer weighs 150 kg and the load about 150kg thats 300 and 7% of that is 21kg

So add the bikes etc to the trailer downforce 57 + 21 = 78kg.

This is in excess of the vehicle noseweight spec !  Of course this is all working on ali framed adult bike weights and could be more or less.

So , what I am trying to say is you will be near the limit or possibly over it by a bit. If you decide to explore this route weigh everything with care and make sure your OK before going for it !

We also have a maxxraxx and used it when we had a conventional tent for 4 bikes. Once the bikes are strapped in they become part of the raxx so very well fixed. Also you have the advantage of being able to lower the rack while loaded so you can stil get access to the boot.

Last year we brought a trailer tent and was planning to use the maxxraxx. We found we could only get 3 bikes on while maintaining the turning space. So we purchaced an extension pole that lifted the bike higher so now we could get all 4 on as long as we took the front wheels off.

With the trailer this was all becomming a faff and also it was deffinatly over the nose weight. I have since made a bike rack for the trailer so the bike mount like they would on a roof rack this means I can balance the trailer and it all tows well with better visbility.

We still take the maxraxx with us in the boot so that we can still use it to get from the campsite the cycle destination