Firstly I must say that none of the creativity and development of this mounting was my own work. All I did was to follow a link that Randa provided some time ago to a thread on the French Forumeribatouring site and copy someone else's engineering drawing (see below).

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Why did I want a bike rack mounting on the front of the caravan? Well, the advice for towing in my car's handbook is to have the caravan nose weight at the maximum figure quoted and in practice I have found this impossible to achieve, although I can't say that I've experienced any problems so far while towing. The other reason is that our two folding bikes are stowed on the floor of the caravan while towing making it difficult to access the interior if we need to use the toilet or to have a snack en route. Putting a couple of bikes over the drawbar should go a long way to solving both problems.

One additional reason is that I don't like rear-mounted bike racks on an Eriba as they put the weight in the wrong place; require drilling holes in the body for the mountings; they make the rear window unopenable and furthermore spoil the view out of the caravan when pitched.

A while ago I posted details of a fabricated bracket designed and built by a French caravanner that I met on a site in Provence but his design, while beautifully engineered is rather complex to make and would need repeated offering up to the caravan to ensure that all the holes were correctly aligned.
(for details see here)

Fortunately, I have a mate who is a skilled welder and when I saw an example of his work recently, I showed him the drawing of the simple bracket and asked him if he could make me one. The look that he gave me was quite withering. He delivered the bracket this morning and my first comment was, "Oh, you decided to make it out of a single piece of steel."

"No, that's been welded, ground and cold-galvanised." He didn't actually say, "You idiot," but I'm sure he was thinking it.

Fitting the bracket and tow ball took less than an hour and here's how to do it:

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These are the bits that you will need:
1 x steel bracket as per the diagram above (I used the cardboard template to ensure that all the measurements were correct before ordering the bracket.)
1 x 50mm bolt-on towball (the one shown is 'Maypole' brand. Others are available.)
2 x M16 bolts, locking washers and nuts (the ones shown came with the towball and are a shade too long. I will replace them and at the same time substitute Nylock nuts and plain washers for the serrated ones.) EDIT: M16 x 40mm bolts are just long enough but 45mm would perhaps be a better choice - see post below)
4 x M10 x 35mm high tensile bolts, plain washers and Nylock nuts.
1 x plastic towball cover (optional)
Total cost under £50.

Start by supporting the front of the caravan chassis on axle stands then unbolt and remove the jockey wheel assembly.

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The steel bracket is bolted to the jockey wheel support plate using the four M10 bolts. You will find it easier to attach the bottom two bolts loosely first and then re-attach the jockey wheel clamp with the upper two bolts. Make sure that all four bolts are really tight and refit the jockey wheel. You can now safely remove the axle stands.

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All that now remains is to fit the towball to the bracket using the M16 bolts and voila, you have a support to which you can attach your choice of bike rack.

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It couldn't be simpler as there was no need to cut the front fairing and the bracket will be easily transferable to another caravan should the need arise sometime in the future.

Great job Brian. It certainly does look easy.

How much clearance do you have between ball and gas locker door?

The beauty of using any front mounted bike rack of course is that you can transfer the rack to the back of the car if you want to go further afield. Perhaps your next job is to add a small trailer light board to the kit Light Board

Randa

OK, here goes:

1. The distance between the front of the gas locker and the edge of the tow ball is 170mm. I haven't yet bought a bike carrier as I need to consider how the bikes attach. The questions I need to answer are, will the folding bikes (no crossbar) fit on the rack and also will my wife's ordinary bike (without crossbar) fit? I have a Dawes Super Galaxy that I know will fit.

2. The steel used is 40mm x 10mm which is a stock size that my mate already had in his workshop. The bracket is made from two pieces 270mm and 133mm long that are welded together along the joint. I had a bit of difficulty envisaging the finished piece but the joint runs between the four x 10mm holes. On the finished piece it is impossible to see where it has been welded together.

3. The jockey wheel is easy to remove. I simply wound it up fully then slackened the clamp and wiggled the whole unit downwards through the hole in the fairing. Replacing it was simply the reverse.

4. Choice of bike rack. I'm still researching this but the Thule 970 Express looks as though it will tick all the boxes. Have a look at this video for details. I anticipate mounting the rack with the bikes facing towards the tow car and hope that there will be enough clearance to open the gas locker to reach the gas cylinder valve as this will need to be checked by staff at the Eurotunnel terminal before departure.

The Thule rack looks like the one Frantone is using with his front mounted ball :-

g45p681-Tow-ball-adaptor.html#viewport

g45p682-Thule-bike-carrier.html#viewport

g45p683-bikes.html#viewport

Randa

I doubt it will make any difference as even if the ball were mounted dead centre, it would be practically impossible to ensure that the weight of the bikes was distributed evenly to left and right.

Also, I think that if the French designer had experienced any problems with the installation he (and others who have followed his instructions) would have been quick to comment.

I've ordered a Thule 970 Express so I'll be able to experiment with bike stowage next week.

The new bike rack arrived yesterday so this morning I've been experimenting with bikes and can report as follows.

1. The Thule 970 Express is a very well made piece of kit and well worth the £54 inc p&p that I paid for it (Amazon). It clamps very firmly to the tow ball and is rock solid once the locking bar has been pushed into position.

2. Clamping the rack onto the ball takes a lot of downwards pressure and it is essential to be careful here and use only the heel of the palm keeping the fingers well away from the mechanism which acts like shears and could cause serious injury. I consulted Frantone to confirm that this was normal. The locking bar can be repositioned to increase/decrease the clamping pressure but in view of Tony's comments I decided to leave mine as delivered.

Releasing the rack is easy but the arms do come together quite forcibly once the pressure is released so again care is needed to avoid being clonked on the elbow.

3. When the rack is mounted correctly it leans slightly out of the vertical towards the gas locker. Thanks to Tony for confirming that this is normal.

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4. With the bike rack mounted, the gas locker can be opened just enough to get an arm inside to manually confirm that the gas valve on the cylinder has been turned off.

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5. As the rubber mounts on the rack can be swivelled on their bars, I found that it is possible to attach our two folding bikes without too much trouble. The folding pedals are useful here but some additional strapping will be necessary to hold everything firm while towing although, as you can see, there is quite a bit of clearance between bikes and caravan bodywork. I didn't think to try with the handlebars folded down.

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6. Surprisingly my touring bike and Mrs C's hybrid were more difficult to mount and although I did manage to get them on, I think a lot more experimenting will be needed before I'm satisfied.

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7. I changed the M16 x 50mm bolts for M16 x 40mm with plain washers and Nylock nuts and while these are just long enough to ensure that the nylon locking insert is fully engaged, 45mm bolts would perhaps have been better. However, as the tow ball is not being used for its intended purpose, I don't anticipate this being a problem.

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8. Things still to be done; a) investigate straps, bungies etc for better securing the bikes in place and b) look into some sort of cover to protect the bikes while towing in bad weather.

9. To date total expenditure on this project is still below £100 so I'm well pleased..

Quote: Frantone wrote in post #11

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Just remembered something that may be relevant.......
One of the disc brakes on my bike became very noisy. The local bike guy said the brake pad was contaminated and it was most probably diesel exhaust from when the bikes were on the front tow ball carrier and so in proximity of the exhaust pipe.

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That was so.........................moving. I'm all choked up with the beautiful imagery. I can't wait to start my car again, get down and put my nostrils to the exhaust pipe.

Thanks for the tip-off about the straps, Tony. They look the business so I've just ordered a pack.

As the sun was shining this morning, I've been doing some more experimentation (OK, I've been faffing about again) to assess the impact that carrying bikes on a front-mounted rack has on the caravan nose weight.

Using a Milenco gauge which is guaranteed to be accurate, the readings I took were as follows:

1. Nose weight without racks or bikes mounted with most of usual touring kit on board apart from food and with tanks dry - 48Kg

2. With both bikes mounted on rack - 70Kg (an increase of 22Kg)

3. With two Duvalays rolled in their bags placed towards the rear of the caravan - 65 Kg (17Kg above baseline figure)

My Audi driver's handbook states that the maximum drawbar weight is 80Kg and that 'for safety reasons' the drawbar weight should be as close as possible to this figure.

BUT the sticker on the Triton drawbar fairing states that the maximum drawbar weight is 75Kg so this is the figure not to exceed.

My conclusions have to be that having a front-mounted bike rack will enable me to get the drawbar weight close to the optimum figure of, say, 70Kg but that care will be needed when loading the van to ensure that I do not exceed 75Kg. I will do some further readings when preparing for the next departure and once I have determined how best to arrange the caravan contents to achieve this figure I will stick to this layout.

A secondary conclusion is that if mounting a couple of bikes over the drawbar can have such a positive influence on towball loading then carrying bikes overhanging the back of the caravan on a rear-mounted rack must have a similar negative effect.

Has anyone taken similar readings to those listed above that we could compare?

What is obvious is that careful loading is in either case essential to ensure towing safety.