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Does anyone do anything like this in the UK?
Scorpion is only two bikes and not available these days, Yakima is receiver not towball.
I’m interested in a four bike one.
Or alternatively does anyone in Spain know anything about these people?
https://mrtbikes.com/portabicis-vertical-bikes/
was trying to find, but someone on here once mentioned that in terms of insurance for crashes it was dependent on the position of the rear number plate and lights, so on the towbar setups using wheel trays and number plate/lights built in your bikes would be covered if someone runs into the back of you as they were 'part of the vehicle'
can't find anything concrete on this though..
But if someone went into the back of you wouldn't it be their insurance paying out? If someone crashed their car into your house then they (and their insurers) would be on the hook for fixing it even though it's not a vehicle.
Maybe it's different of claiming under your own policy, e.g. reversing into something.
The Vertical Bikes one meets the EU rules apparently and (because Brexit doesn’t really change these things) presumably the UK ones.
But if someone went into the back of you wouldn’t it be their insurance paying out?
Yer obviously, but think someone has mentioned that the bikes would be excluded as not part of the insured vehicle?
But if someone went into the back of you wouldn’t it be their insurance paying out?
not if your rear lights are covered by bikes.
the only UK model I'm aware of is the scorpion, I doubt that a stupid UK towball is good enough to take the leverage that a verticle rack for more bikes can apply.
Given it’s a four bike rack and the weight is better centred than on a traditional towball rack, I doubt leverage is too much of a problem.
The one I linked to says:
The Vertical Bikes bike rack has been designed so that it can be used in any type of car (SUV, van, saloon, sports, off-road, etc.)
Approval valid for the European Community.
That EU towball is identical to the UK towball including all the fitting to the car I think.
Thing to consider is that the vertical ones are all a bodge. You'd need to crank it so hard onto the ball I personally would be forever worrying its tight enough. They normally use the 2" hitch which is rock solid for this application. To that end if I wanted to do this badly enough I would get the Witter 2" hitch if it fits my vehicle, + one from the US/Canada like the Yakima.
Which I appreciate is really no help at all in answering your question 😉
Light board below bike wheels.
Four bikes in this shot, though I don’t think I’d lean it this far forward (you can vary that)
The Vertical Bikes one meets the EU rules apparently
Consider how it very clearly blocks the number plate if there's a bike on there and it's viewed from any elevated position, I strongly suspect it doesn't or that it' at least skirting very close to them.
That said, most bike racks break at least one aspect of the rules, you could drive around with one for years and have no grief but it only takes one Police officer who knows the rules and whose wife just ran off with a cyclist...
the weight is better centred than on a traditional towball rack,
the weight is better centred but also has a lot more leverage - the centre of the bikes is effectively held >1m from the ball, whereas the centre of weight on a normal rack is maybe 30cm from the ball - you need for it not to rotate during an impact, which would be hard to achieve with a ball-based rack. Add to that the racks normally weigh ~ double what a small rack might and you're heading down a bad path.
on that spanish site looks like the 4 bike rack weighs 36kg, which wouldn't be much use for most mountain bikes on european cars - they also look like they have straps in place in some of the pictures to hook the load onto the rear of the car. I also can't see a way it folds down to access the boot of the car without being unloaded
@benpinnick - This wouldn’t be a problem if your bikes were shorter. And I didn’t have four riders in the family. 🙄
I’m going to have another one of the four on a medium large / large next year.
Already in the largest Thule and the bikes over hang the sides of the Kodiaq.
The vertical racks are not really UK friendly as we have different rules to the US, it's why you just don't see them here. The requirement for a lighting board renders the design pointless compared to the horizontal ones we're all familiar with. Even that white Evoque above is not legal for the UK, the light board needs to be the rearmost part of the rack. There were moves to get a vertical design without the need for extra lights and number plate EU (and hence UK) compliant back around 2010 but no-one managed it, not even Thule. The odd one on the market now only exist as they exploit a small ambiguity that also allows those high mount strap-on carriers that are meant to leave the lights and number plate uncovered: they put a disclaimer on the box that a lighting board may be necessary depending upon the car. The ambiguity comes in that our laws state that anything overhanging the rear of a car by 50cm or more needs additional lighting so pretty much every bike would be too tall when mounted vertically.
There's also the issue of our towballs being designed for things to pivot as opposed to the 2" hitch the US use. Like benpinnick days they need to be done up stupidly tight to stop them moving with the height and leverage vertical bikes can cause. Remember that the longer the lever the more force is applied.
Yer obviously, but think someone has mentioned that the bikes would be excluded as not part of the insured vehicle?
But the person who's crashed into you hasn't insured your vehicle, they've insured themselves against liabilities arising from use of their vehicle. If they damage anything of yours through negligence then they are liable, and their insurance is there to cover their liabilities related to their car. So your car insurance might not pay out to replace your bikes if you reverse them into a bollard, but if someone crashes into your they're liable for repairing/replacing your car, your clothes that got ruined, the laptop in the boot that got squashed, the bikes on the rack, the Fabergé eggs in the roof box etc etc, just as they'd have to pay if they hit you when you were on foot, on a bike, or sitting at home and they crash through your front window.
not if your rear lights are covered by bikes.
Yeah, that's the key point. You might end up being found at fault if you block your brake lights, but that's not the same as the bike not being covered.
Even that white Evoque above is not legal for the UK, the light board needs to be the rearmost part of the rack
On that basis my Thule 4 bike rack wouldn’t be legal.
And on pivoting, a towball is designed to have minimal vertical pivoting, which is why you can put the rack on step back, offer it up, then clamp it. There is some vertical movement but most of the pivoting is horizontal.
I agree there is more leverage at the front wheel but less force applied at that point. Torque is probably key, force times distance?
The centre of gravity of a flat four bike is 70cm or so behind the ball. That’s a lot of force & leverage even in comparison to the top of the vertical ones.
I may of course be wrong. Been wrong before
Good luck with all that @bails - I've had friends get crashed into and both insurance parties will only cover repair of the vehicle and will disregard any damage to anything on the vehicle (like a bike) or anything inside the vehicle that isn't part of the car i.e. a crystal vase that you were moving to another location.
It would be great if it did take care of everything like that, but it doesn't seem to be the way...even though it should be.
Personally, I'm quite happy with a bit of overhang - I can then see the bikes in my wing mirrors - I'm in a Peugeot Partner - which I think is about the same size as the Kodiaq, so I think (and it is just a think) that as long as your wheels don't extend beyond your wing mirrors then there isn't an issue. I'm on 27.5 bikes and the equivalent 29er would add an extra 20mm in length to the bikes...and I've definitely got more than than to go judging on how much tyre is showing (just the tyre itself, the rims aren't visible).
Vertical racks scare me...was there not a video of an Orange flying off a vertical rack as the Range Rover (or maybe a Land Rover) overtook another car? I'm not convinced they would be as stable or secure...there is a lot of exposed bike above the roof so strong gusts could just be enough to add to the leverage and something go wrong...a towball horizontal rack tends to have less of the bike above the roof line, so it isn't quite so exposed.
appears not how the Basque vertical rack is built as it has a clamp but my Buzzrack (e-scorpion2) stays put even before tightening as do many of the more standard rear racks.
Buzzrack Buffalo hangon rack 4 bike using the same clamp as their e-scorpion and other racks (as seems Halfords, assume Buzz makes theirs)
Ignoring all the light/number plate issues, you could see the clamp arrangement from the Buffallo could be used as part of a vertical rack system and can't see how it would be that much different to 4 bikes on a hangon?
the difference is not when you're tootling along but when you have an accident. Peak vertical loads whilst driving over a speedbump probably max out at something like 1.5g, with the cog maybe 30cm out and 30cm up from the ball on a normal rack. Peak horizontal loads during an accident will easily exceed 8-10g, and the centre of that force is now 1m above the ball. A rack of bikes collapsing rearwards through the windscreen of someone who drove into the back of you is not an acceptable design
The requirement for a lighting board renders the design pointless compared to the horizontal ones we’re all familiar with. Even that white Evoque above is not legal for the UK, the light board needs to be the rearmost part of the rack.
I think it was this that killed the UK scorpion rack company, I have and still use the two bike version and so far have never been pulled over and have overtaken or been overtaken by many police vehicles.
You’d need to crank it so hard onto the ball I personally would be forever worrying its tight enough
The sell for me was going into Peaslake village and seeing one of the scorpions in person and then the owner of car, rack and bike getting on the bike for a few mins. I actually have the reverse issue right now where I sheared the bolt so its clamped tight around my swan neck and will need drilling out to remove and then replace the bolt!