Strap on Bike Racks

[Wan]

Has anybody had any success using any particular model of a strap down bike rack? I went to this custom rack shop in Victoria and they didn't feel good about selling me a rack because there's no edges for them to grab on to on the trunk door of the Delica. He said the top end wouldn't hold tight to the door. I thought of strapping down the two vertical straps with an additional horizontal one to keep it more secure. I'm trying to avoid the hitch style. Another question I have is if the pressure of the top half of the rack on the window of the van is cause for concern.

Any thoughts or experiences out there to share?

Wan

[EnviroImports.com]

Hi, a skookum bike rack is at the top of the list for most requested thing to fabricate. so we are making one that does double purpose, one part will have a rack for a cooler/cargo box. and a 2-3 bike rack, fold out arms, heavy duty aluminium and super light weight. one with out the cooler rack has allready gone out , more will be on the way, I will be posting picts in the next couple weeks, these are delica specific and each one is custom built. so they are not super fast to build.
Also if you do have a trailer hitch that makes the mounting soooooooo much easier.
but in general these mount onto the rear door.

[jrman]

If you're only interested in 2 bikes - you can PM Mitch who can do a custom setup, quite stealth on your bull bars, for a fee of course. I did it earlier this month and love it - easy to remove the bars. Find Mitch and send him PM and he'll shoot you some photos - he's in Burnaby though, so that might cause you some grief unless heading this way. The system requires your bull bars paint to get beat up a bit - but I'm living with that until I get them Rhino'd. Anyway - very happy with the setup that Mitch provided - again, only good for 2 bikes.

As for the rear setup off the back door - very interested in hearing more about this, always need room for more bikes and a gear rack is even better....keep us posted with pics when ready - I sense a good order file coming you're way!

[flooperer]

I've been using this one from mec

http://www.mec.ca/Products/product_deta ... 0953360891

So far nothing has fallen off, the straps do occasionally come lose so I check it periodically, but so far I've gotten at least 5000km free of incident with up to three heavy mountain bikes on it.

I think the long term answer is getting a tow hitch put on the van and put a rack on that way.

[dpd]

If you've got a ladder on your van, there's a ladder-mounted bike rack which I've got my eye on, when my Delica arrives. Surco makes it, about $70. The bike arms swivel out of the way when not in use. Looks pretty secure, hard to tell for sure though!