We have a 4ft x 3ft trailer to put our camping gear in and would like to add a towball to the rear to attach our Thule bike rack. Couldn't find any advice on Google about how to do it properly etc so does this mean we shouldn't be doing it? We were thinking of attaching it to either a piece of metal or wood then screwing this to the trailer frame so that the walls of the trailer weren't taking all the weight?
No,we don't have a drop tail board,but can't find any other posts either on here or anywhere on Google that says it's legal to do it. We've just been pricing up roof bars & cycle carriers-very expensive to do,whereas we already have a towball that we could just fit then attach our Thule bike carrier to that. I just would've thought that if it was a good idea then someone else on here would've done it already!!!
Where you attach the ball to should be connected in someway to the trailers chassis. The sides are the aluminium trailers are not that strong & i would have my doubts as to whether it would take the strain of holding bikes.
As mentioned dependind in the towbar a towbar mounted bracket or mount them to the trailers A frame. What is the loading capacity of the trailer 200kg for a 4x3?
Adding the Bikes & brackets would use a fair sized chunk of that 75kg? or more?
The danger of adding any weight to the back of a trailer is that it would increase the lightlyhood of snaking. This can be just as bad on a badly loaded camping trailer as in a small caravan.
A better option is to get a local engineering works to make you up a frame that will bolt to the trailer chassis and up the sides of the trailer to carry a roofrack over the trailer that will in turn carry your bikes. That way the weight of the bikes are carried within the trailer load area.
Quote: Originally posted by smudgebiscuit on 03/4/2010
Thanks Steve,
No,we don't have a drop tail board,but can't find any other posts either on here or anywhere on Google that says it's legal to do it. We've just been pricing up roof bars & cycle carriers-very expensive to do,whereas we already have a towball that we could just fit then attach our Thule bike carrier to that. I just would've thought that if it was a good idea then someone else on here would've done it already!!!
You can't hang over 40kg behind a small trailer. You need some weight on the towbar, this would be pulling the rear of the car upwards. It would snake when you hit a bump & probabley go out of control. What you are proposing is a non starter.
Your best bet is either to mount bikes on car roof or fit bars across trailer & put bike roof mounts on those. If you have an Erde trailer or similar you can buy these fittings made for the trailer.