i’m still sad my old home-made bike rack was destroyed: that one was made from aluminium and i could easily lift it up alone – with one hand! the new one is super heavy duty, but also heavy af and i dread every time i have to install it or take it off. on the plus side it can hold a maximum of five bikes, and especially here in tassie we use that feature quite a bit.
the rack had one issue that was bothering me: it was wobbling quite a bit side to side. the tongue it came with was a fair bit smaller than the 50mm receiver and the anti-wobble mechanism it came with didn’t work on our car, due to the casting of the receiver. that issue, however, was sorted when the manufacturer sent me a new tongue with a much improved pedal operated pivot.
so no more wobbles, tilting down has become a breeze thanks to the pedal operated lock mechanism, which left only one little niggle i had to address. the bungee cords that secure the front & rear wheels are really not easy to use: often they get stuck under the front wheel and getting them unstuck is not easy, especially with a few bikes on the carrier. and while they work ok on standard rims, mine are quite deep which makes the cords a very tight fit.
so here is the solution: i bought clamps that are used for ropes on sailboats. a loop goes around the pedal and then the rope is tightened in the clamp. the clamp has a locking mechanism so hopefully the ropes won’t become slack and drop the bikes.
i think from now on at least loading & unloading the bikes will be super quick & easy. i’ll still hate taking the rack off the car.