Which bike rack to purchase?

[Bette]

We are new at this, just bought 324RLQ 08' Mountaineer, would like to add a bike rack on the bumper. We bought at camping world a Swagman 2 bike carrier to hook on the bumper. It has two shelves and one rod all made of steel. I can carry the box. Do you think it would be OK to use? Any other suggestions? I know we don't want a ladder rack.

[Johnnyfry]

Bette:

We had the same problem, I saw the Swagman 2 bike rack at Camping World and bought it. It works great. It comes with a bumper clamp and is very secure.

The problem I had was that I had to move the spare tire bracket way over to one side so that the bikes do not overhang the side of the trailer. That was fine but the tire then blocked the license tag and tail light. I may have to move these up.

Otherwise the rack is great. When we are in a campground, we can move the rack to the back of the truck for local biking trip.

[Rob]

be carful we had our bike rack on the back bumper and it broke off .....on the highway..It was the Swagman .....luckily we could pull over and nobody got hurt ....and there was no trailer damage....we are now putting our bikes in the dumpster, but it could have been a lot worse ....

[cumminsdad08]

i have been thinking about this too. i would be afraid of them falling off somewhere and that i wouldn't even notice it, better yet, i stop for a pit stop and someone walks off(ok rides off) with them, and again i wouldn't know untill i looked for them. i actually can fit mine in the storage door under the bunk bed, but my wife thought it would be a great idea to put those child seats on so we can put "stuff" in the trailer that the kids use to ride in, and i don't think that i can get them in there anymore.

[rjsurfer]

Originally Posted by Rob

be carful we had our bike rack on the back bumper and it broke off .....on the highway..It was the Swagman .....luckily we could pull over and nobody got hurt ....and there was no trailer damage....we are now putting our bikes in the dumpster, but it could have been a lot worse ....

Rob,

I too have the Swagman 2 bike carrier, it's the one with the 2" receiver welded to the 6" bumper attachment. Where did the rack fail? I want to be able to keep an eye on it on our upcoming trips.

I looked it over and couldn't really find any point were it looked weak.

Thanks

Ron W.

[Rob]

The u-bolts snapped, they were new on this trip and we had just checked 5 minutes before and everything looked ok, but they snapped!