Jurie Schuurman

A bike rack on the trailer lid will be a good idea. It will depend on how sturdy the lid is but generally I think you will be ok. With the lid being closed there should be no problems, opening and closing it whilst loaded with 4 bikes may overload the hinges, lid handle etc. But these can be beefed up as I did on my son's Alustar trailer last week by fitting heavy duty hinges and reinforcing the lid corners so it can carry a large roofrack, two fishing kayaks and other gear.

Since I saw my first mountain bike in 1987 (yes I am an old toppie!) I fell in love with it. Almost 40 years later I am still at it enjoying the outdoors with my life partner (she started cycling 8 years ago) on either our Trek Stache 29+ mtb's or our e-mtb's. I have never been one for competitive cycling but we try to cycle 2 to 3 times a week and when we go camping (which is often) exploring tracks in the Cederberg, Tankwa, Namibia, Namaqua Park, Namakwaland or wherever adventure takes us.

You cannot only look at the weight of the bikes and rack on a towball mount. The centre of gravity of your loaded bicycle rack will be a good 400 to 600 mm away from the centre of the vehicle's tow hitch. So say a rack (30kg)+ 2 e-bikes (60kg) + 2 mtb's (30kg) = 120kg and the C.O.G. is 600 mm away from the hitch. This means you have a vertical load of 120kg and because the rack is stiffly mounted (no rotation on the tow hitch ball as with a trailer or caravan) a bending moment of 120x0.6 m= 72 Nm imposed on the to hitch. This calculation is for static loading and gets worse in dynamic conditions which can increase the load and bending moment figures by a factor of 2+. I will be very apprehensive of imposing those loads on a tow hitch. More so on the lighter duty tow hitches fitted to chassis less SUV or passenger vehicles. We do a lot of offroad camping every year and I don't hang bicycles of the back of the vehicle or caravan as they get choked up(powder coated) with dust. (Much worse than in cycling on dirt roads). So I either put them on the roofrack (Thule bike racks) when using the Subaru, which is ok for our mtb's but the e-bikes we bought last year is too heavy. Alternatively I load them on a homemade rack that screws onto the load tray of my bakkie (4 bolts, it is a 2 minute job) where they sit securely and dust free and I can still utilize the load space of the bakkie. Currently the rack is two rails, but it can be modified to take 4.

I started mtb'ing in 1987 and have never stopped enjoying it since then. Over the years I have owned a number of hardtail mtb's (never took the full suspension plunge) but the best bike I have ever had and still use is a Trek Stache 9.5. (Carbon fibre hardtail, 29x3.0" tyres, 1x12 Sram, dropper seatpost). The wife and I don't ride competitions but we love exploring wilderness areas, hence these bikes (she has a Stache too) join us on all our 4x4 touring trips to the Karoo, Richtersveld, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and even as far as Uganda. With their 29x3.0" wide tyres they go almost everywhere and we tour river beds, sandy tracks, beaches or gnarly jeep tracks. (honourable mention is the Bridgestone MB-1 I bought in 1989, I loved that bike. No suspension but what a bike at that time.)