[Closed] Bikes and Caravans.

Put them on the roof of your car.

Strap them to the dags.

I could put them on the roof of my car but that does mean I cant open the sunroof due to the deafening wind noise.

Think you may experience a smidge of wind noise anyway dragging a shed behind you 😉

Put them on the car. In the 'van - need to watch your allowed weights which may be an issue. It is possible to add a specific carrier to the rear of the 'van (similar to the ones motorhomes use) however, this may cause stability issues if car/van are not loaded really carefully.

Put them on the car. It’s what we did.
The inside of the ‘van is an awkward place to thread bikes in (apart from through the front window) and it’s easily damaged.
Racks on the back of the van are a possibility but they can bugger up the nose weight.

You're towing a small building, put them in that.

On the car prob best.
Rear of caravan a possibility, but not sure if that is spec’d when new? And isn’t the best place for weight to be placed, effectively a pendulum on the caravan.
Depending on tow car, and towball type you could fit a towbar type that bolts between ball and flange. But easy to overload the car unless it has a very high rating (think 4x4’s)
Vans are built to be light weight, which doesn’t lend itself to being super robust for bikes clattering and rubbing about inside.

There's some company that makes bike racks that fit onto the bracket that the towball's bolted to, can't remember who though, & theyr'e not cheap. I think the same company do them to bolt onto the A frame as well, trouble is UK vans have a shorter A frame than continentals. (I think Bailey now do a small van now with a longer A frame)
I've seen caravans of various makes with racks but I think they're specced from new. I wouldn't like to try & fit one to our caravan.
Carry the wheels in the caravan & frames in the car or vice versa?

On the car , absolutely.

Or do what I did. Buy a Transit custom and tow it with that, and 4 bikes and a full workshop and changing room 🙂

Do not put it inside the caravan, it will fly about and damage things, no matter what you do with it.

Another vote for on the car.

On the car.

be careful adding weight to the rear

In the car. You've an estate car, and there's only 2 of you, get em stripped doon and in the back.

I'm wanting to try Vertically mounted sea sucker racks on the front of the van.

Don't put them in the van. They can bounce around a lot and trash the interior, they also add a lot of weight. Your user payload is likely to be abut 150kg or so (after essentials like some gas and water), which isn't a lot. Even two bikes is likely to be a reasonable chunk of that, four for a family even more so.

European vans have a longer A frame so you can get bikes on that; likewise they can mount bikes on the rear with the appropriate rack. However I wouldn't advise either of those things because of weight distribution. Your caravan nose weight should be 5-7% of the van's total weight. For me, that is pretty close to the maximum nose weight of the car. Sticking 30kg of bikes and rack on the A frame is going to far exceed that. Putting them on the rear would be highly likely to reduce the nose weight by too much, and the weight would all be at the back where it'd wag the van. It's very important to a comfortable and safe drive, so don't mess around with nose weights!

Ours go on the (car) roof.
It’s a pain getting them up there though so I take one of those lightweight builders hop-up step things.
If it’s just s short trip I might pop them in the caravan but caravan interiors & sharp metal wheeled items don’t get on.

Cheers, looks like the roof wins.

@nobeer you clearly haven't seen what mrs d classes as 'only the essentials' 😂 as for the dag it will be doing the tarmac driveways in my absence.

We used to have one of these on the back of a Discovery towing a caravan. Discovery has a big nose weight allowance.

https://pendle-bike.co.uk/collections/hang-on-tow-bar-racks/products/higher-hang-on-tow-bar-rack

I would go roof mount tho on a estate car

Since getting an ebike, on the car is not really an option due to the weight and there are 2 dogs in the car (Skoda Yeti). I bought a fork mount which I mounted on a peice of timber which fits on the floor of the van. I then drilled 2 x 6mm holes through this and the floor. On the bottom of this I fixed 2 T nuts held in place by block of wood glued on. 2 long threaded boots with turn knobs hold it all down and easily removable. The bike is now easily fixed and removed. Make sure the weight is positioned over the axle to minimise any effects on nose weight. The front wheel goes in a bag. I usually remove the pedals to get the bike in the van.