The Ultimate Bike Rack on an A'van

The Ultimate Bike Rack on an A'van

Heather and Siggy Nowak have received a lot of requests for more info on their bike rack featured on these pages some months back. Sadly we didn't have enough photos showing the completed rack and the photos below hopefully rectify this as the others were taken is Siggy's shed and we couldn't get far enough away. The system has now been extensively tested for seven months and we gave it a thorough check in October 2001 and there is absolutely no sign of any stress or immanent weld failure. What makes Siggy's approach different to others is he took the trouble to reinforce the chassis. This was done very simply by sliding two 3/16 thick RHS sections up inside the existing chassis, then welding an extra cross brace and reattaching the pole carrier. This effectively "spread" the load - a very good approach. If Siggy had his time over (read he IS thinking about getting a bigger A'van so will be doing yet another rack!) he would replace the entire pole carrier with heavier gauge Rectangular Hollow Section (RHS) and eliminate the extra piece of RHS that now holds his spare tyre. This would reduce the total overhang and improve balance by reducing weight. We know this would work as it is exactly what Chalet are already doing as standard as all Chalets are suitable for carrying bikes on the rear. It would be great if A'van could beef up the pole carrier to allow fitting an aluminium Fiamma bike rack directly to the spare wheel. It would only add 3 kg to the weight of the van. What do others think?

Bob Eustace