What do I need if I want to carry bikes on my roof.

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G-A-R-Y

Active Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2007
Messages
127
Location
Bristol
Car
W210 320 CDI Estate
W210 Estate, what do I need if I want to carry three bikes? on the roof bars.
 
Is this an April fools?

answer....roof bars?

check the Thule range, you can get the cross bars to fit the estate and the bike holders that have a centre support (very study). The thule range costs a bit but it is good quality and if you change cars can usually get different 'feet' for the new car.

HalFrauds sell them

Any reason why on the top? eats your fuel, zaps you chucking it round bends. Have you a tow bar?


Cheers
 
Tow bar is for a caravan. Will any cross bars fit or are they car specific? What about the dealer (too expensive)
 
You need appropriate roof bars then suitable bike racks. Thule are good. There are anumber of different ones though. I would recommend buyng three individual ones then you can fit as many as you want.

This place is good

http://www.roofracks.co.uk/

Bought a roof box and a bike rack from them in the past.
 
Hello,

Try the dealers but guess pricey, no thay are generally made to fit the car although some may be more universal.

You can still tow and put the bikes on a bike rack attached to the towing bracket. Means getting in the boot awkard with most racks (some pivot).

This sort of idea?

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.maxxraxx.co.uk/images/tow_and_carry_sorento.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.maxxraxx.co.uk/Benefits/Advantages/tow_and_carry.html&h=316&w=421&sz=88&hl=en&start=1&sig2=g4e4GSQLuH1e9BWABEU2nQ&um=1&tbnid=BsuJKeh1CytvvM:&tbnh=94&tbnw=125&ei=5BvbRrT_D4WMxAHWwK2NCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcaravan%2Bbikes%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rlz%3D1T4GZEZ_en-GBGB234GB234%26sa%3DN


Ring the stealers get a price then try flea bay..

cheers
 
Tow bar is for a caravan. Will any cross bars fit or are they car specific? What about the dealer (too expensive)

Cross bars to fit your car from any Halfords. As already mentioned, Thule are excellent quality ... I believe many OEM bars are made by them.
 
I have Thule bike carriers and agree they're good quality items. If you've got the space, another possibility is over the caravan drawbar. Various manufacturers have bike carriers suitable for that but I'd recommend the Al-Ko version. A bit pricey but quality item, tilt so that you keep access to gas locker and can be used either on drawbar or directly mounted on towball if free. Comes completes including light board.
 
Carrying 3 bikes on the towbar or drawbar while towing will almost certainly put you over the max. noseweight for the car ...
 
not necessarally, all depends on the car max noseweight and on how you load the caravan.
 
not necessarally, all depends on the car max noseweight and on how you load the caravan.

Of course, let's try some figures. Recommended noseweight (for stability) is 7% of the caravan weight. If you're towing a 1200 kg caravan (medium sized) that's 84 kg. I don't know what a typical bike weighs ... maybe 15 kgs? So for three that's another 45 kgs. Plus perhaps 10 kgs for the carrier and fittings? So now we're up to around 140 kgs, I would guess the max. noseweight for a W210 is 75 kg?
 
A bit heavy on the bike rack but otherwise sounds about right Bill. Which begs the question, how does anyone legally tow a caravan as it's over the permissible limit?
 
You have to adjust the distribution of the weight so that you don't just ad more to the front. As an example, on mine, I moved the spare wheel (20kg) from the gas locker to a carrier behind the rear axle to free up some capacity. It all depends also on what weight you have on the drawbar with the van completely unladen. Again, in my case there is very little so I can load stuff without going over the car noseweight limit.
 
A bit heavy on the bike rack but otherwise sounds about right Bill. Which begs the question, how does anyone legally tow a caravan as it's over the permissible limit?

A loaded noseweight of 7% of the caravan weight is a guideline for good stability, some cars have higher towbar limits than others (and obviously caravan weights vary) ... so with a well-matched outfit it is possible to be legal. In reality you may get away with less than 7% if you have a stable towcar (long wheelbase, short rear overhang) and good weight ratio (towcar significantly heavier than caravan).

I just wanted to make the point that while towbar bike carriers are fine when you're not towing, with a caravan there you are almost certainly going to be in trouble.
 
You have to adjust the distribution of the weight so that you don't just ad more to the front. As an example, on mine, I moved the spare wheel (20kg) from the gas locker to a carrier behind the rear axle to free up some capacity. It all depends also on what weight you have on the drawbar with the van completely unladen. Again, in my case there is very little so I can load stuff without going over the car noseweight limit.

All true, but if you have a noseweight limit of 75 kg on the car and you stick 50 kg of bikes and carrier on the towbar you can only balance the caravan to a noseweight of 25 kg ... which is likely to be very unstable.
 
no because the actual noseweight would be 75kg, not 25kg. Of course, if you removed the bikes you would need to put some weight back on.
 
some cars have higher towbar limits than others (and obviously caravan weights vary)

All the ones I have looked at have 75Kg as the limit. Do you know ones that have a greater limit?
 

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