Cycle rack/ ladder rack.?

[Celticfox]

Hello,

I've recently acquired a Swift Bolero 680fb. 7007. I'm also new to motorhoming. It has a ladder rack already fitted to the rear.

Can anyone suggest, or is there a cycle rack that can be fitted to the rear without interfering with the ladder.? I have a schematics detail from swift showing me.the bearer positions, but I'm struggling to find a rack that misses the ladder when folded up. Or even opens out for that matter. I also have a towbar, if that makes any difference( for a rack option) . I would appreciate any feed back

Thanks,

[Robbo]

I had a similar problem but in reverse. I had a ladder added after the bike rack.

 

On my bike rack you could move the bike support channels to one side a bit and give just sufficient clearance to the ladder.

 

If you did this you'd need to check that the wheels of the bike were still contained within the width of the van.

 

It's obviously not ideal to have the bikes loaded off-centre to the bike rack but it worked OK in my case without any adverse effects.

[Brian Kirby]

But, how many times might you need to use the ladder with the bikes on the rack? We had the same with our first van, and to be honest the ladder was very seldom used. The only time I had a problem with the bikes obstructing access to the ladder was when there was about 9" of snow on the van roof, which I wanted to clear. It then occurred to me that waddling around on snow on a van roof might not be the best idea, so I resorted to throwing the tow rope over the van and using that to drag as much as possible free. The rest cleared itself later, when I had to stop abruptly for traffic lights - but that is a different story! :-)

[Billggski]

I have the same problem, but rarely use the ladder. The runners on the bike rack will adjust to one side so they don't foul the ladder, so it can still be mounted centrally.

The front bike wheel can be taken off and stored inside.