Making a bike rack more difficult to cut?

[Cattwg]

We have just bought two electric bikes and of necessity one will have to be carried on our rear door mounted rack. It will be well chained and locked with SoldSecure products. The bikes are full size folding bikes. One will be in the ‘boot’ of our Adria Twin and the other folded minus its battery and saddle. It will be completely be covered so will not look like a bike, hopefully.

 

I’m aware that thieves use bolt cutters to sever the actual rack from the vehicle and of course any bikes with it. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can make the rack much harder to cut? I accept that if ‘they’ want it ‘they’ will get it but I’m trying to make it as awkward as possible

 

I have a couple of ideas in mind but would be interested in other people’s thoughts.

One idea was an internal anchor with chain/hawser through the back door seals. I do not want to drill through the back door.

I was wondering if the frame could be filled with a liquid (plastic or similar?) that would solidify. Is this feasible?

Another thought was to twist wire rope around the main sections of the rack.

As we are carrying just one bike on the rack I have several kgs of spare capacity to add ‘bits and pieces’.

 

The rack is a Thule that mounts onto the backdoor of a pvc conversion.

 

None of these ideas make the bikes thief proof but it makes it more difficult. The bikes are insured but losing one whilst on holiday would really spoil it for us.

 

Cattwg :-D

[mel wood]

I would be wary of adding any extra weight if the bike rack is one that fits onto a rear door. Many people have had no problems using such racks but some (including myself) have had the experience and associated expense of part of the door bending.

With the design of your van is it not possible to fold both the bikes and store them in the space under the bed or even fold up the bed to give you greater storage ?

 

After our experience of the door bending, we bought folding bikes which we transported inside our van. (I know that this means finding somewhere to store and secure them when on site.)

[Cattwg]

Hi Mel,

Thank you for your reply. I’m not overly concerned about weight as we will just have one bike on the rack and of course the battery and saddle will be removed. That gives us several kgs to play with. One bike will be under the bed but two will not fit. If, as you suggest, we lift the bed to accommodate it then our other paraphernalia will not have a home.

John :-D

[peterjl]

Hi

An alarm system with a bike loop is what we use. It has saved the bikes at least once when they cut the wire but were then scared off.

 

Peter

[colin]

I'd go with peter's idea, any wire thick enough to be any good will struggle to fit in door gaps, let alone the water leaking in. The towing loop will offer more resistance to cutting, or look to see if there's anything else under the van, ours are locked, in effect, to the towbar.