Rang Bailey and asked if my 07 Bailey Pageant would take a bike rack on the rear of the van.I was told there are support blocks built in which enables the use of a Fiamma UL.Bearing in mind that all weight considerations would be made.has anyone else tried this? We would only put one bike on the rack.
Is weight such an issue I wonder? In years gone by one of the most popular 2 berth designs of caravan (there are still a few around now) was to have the kitchen at the rear with the weight of the oven/fridge right at the back which I suspect was as heavy if not more so than a bike rack and 2 bikes, especially light weight ones. Swift used to offer it as a standard option on their vans. I was talking to someone at Ferry Meadows who had a rear rack on the same van as mine and he was quite happy with it.
Common sense would say weight at the rear of the van would encourage snaking, but the Dutch go in for rear bike racks on their caravans in a big way & obviously have no probs so I would go for it if the manufacturers approve. You also see continental caravans with front bike racks, but I dunno what that does for the nose weight.
------------- Sell my camper? I'd rather eat school semolina!
Interesting points guys..have got van in next saturday for some remedial work and will get the workshop to show me the where the van is strengthened.I will also ask the dealer,mentioning that Bailey have already told me to go ahead as they have made provision for one.
We've considered this as our van is geared up for having a rear bike rack on - Fiamma do one for Burstner vans, we also have a long A frame which would allow for one there too. But we've decided against it. When vans are designed I would imagine they take into account the weight distribution of the fittings, so with a rear kitchen and toilet perhaps this is counterbalanced with other things. To put a weight on the back and fairly high up, as with a bike rack, when the van hasn't been designed with that in mind wouldn't that affect stability? If not with snaking with pitching? You may need to compensate with weight forward to keep your noseweight right. It is very very tempting to do it as it seems a great place to carry them and a couple of Burstner dealers have said it should be fine, but in the end we've opted to carry on with them on the back of the car.
It doesn't matter where the bikes and the rack are positioned on the caravan,on the back or on the A-frame they are just adding to the gross weight of the caravan and cutting down on the amount of gear you can carry inside the van. Look at the allowed payload in your vans handbook and I doubt if it's more than around 250kgs and your bikes will count towards this. What do a couple of bikes and a rack weigh? You'll soon be over the legal MTPLM for your van without even trying (add up the awning,water carriers,food,clothes,sun chairs, BBQ, etc.),leaving your insurance company with a great big excuse not to pay out if the worst should happen and your manufacturer with an excuse not to honour your water ingress warranty because of the holes in the back panel.
Stick them on the car roof or on the tailgate.
A bike rack on the rear may also make the van less attractive to buyers when you come to sell as well, you don't see many around so they can't be that popular!
For those interested in the Bike Rack for long A frame Caravans i.e. German Made vans
We bought one this year it holds 2 Adult bikes, When we measured the noseweight we where ok. We Tow with a 4x4 though.
My Husbands bike is an lightweight bike and mine is a bog standard heavy bike. I guess it is all down to how much you put in your van and where you put it.
We tend to stick heavier items in the car i.e awning etc.
We bought a new Stirling Europa. That had mounting blocks for a cycle rack and we had a Fiamma rack fitted by the dealers. This worked well as the Europa was horrendously nose heavy.
However, after 4 years the van was a write off through damp, with 2 horizontal bands of damp down both sides. This was after a major damp repair in the first year. It appeared the sealant had failed where the outer skin was joined. I still wonder whether a contributary factor was the cycle rack and the extra weight flexing the shell of the van.
A turn round here ! Went to dealers and his description of the installation has put me off, Big holes in back of van, not to mention the inside!.Whilst they didnt condone the fitment of racks, they werent against it either.Although it was confimed that our bailey could take racks on the rear with little effect on the overall weight factor, we have decided to find alernate means.
Thanks to all who contributed, the information was part of our decision making process...as always!
As regards to weight distribution and payloads, ive been looking at 6 berth single axel caravans with fixed rear bunks with whats described as a garage, basically the bottom bunk lifts up with anchor points on the floor to carry cycles, so surely if it affected the weight distribution so much why would they offer it in the first place? Ive seen a few caravans with the bike racks attached to the back of the caravan and I was just searching and found this thread and it has put me off fitting a rack to the rear of a caravan now but if its got anchor points and been designed to carry cycles in the back then???
Sorry Tentz, I respect a lot of your opinions, bu we'll have to disagree on this.
No idea why it should be different for the Dutch but whichever way you look at it you still have weight as far as possible from the axle. Which is bad.
We put ours on the roof of our car. I've thought about van mounted racks but even all of the advice says load your weight in the middle of your van over the axle, why would putting cycles on the rear of the van be any different to loading a shed load internally at the back. If the weight is outside the van, due to the increased distance from the hitch it would add more to the pendulum effect than if inside it so worse again.
I've had a very close escape with a weaving van, and suspect if I'd had as little as another 20 pounds at the back end I would have lost it.
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Topic: Caravan Bike racks
Went to dealers and his description of the installation has put me off, Big holes in back of van, not to mention the inside!.Whilst they didnt condone the fitment of racks, they werent against it either.Although it was confimed that our bailey could take racks on the rear with little effect on the overall weight factor, we have decided to find alernate means. 
