Toad bike rack vs. moving rack back and forth

[brooksrimes]

When we FT'ed 2004-2008 we had a Swagman rack and bikes mounted on the tow bar when we towed, then moved the rack and bikes to the toad when we went biking somewhere.  We sold that rack and Swagman doesn't make that one anymore.

I can probably set up something similar with this Swagman Traveler XC2 rack: https://www.swagman.net/product.htm?pid=828192&cat=40497, but I will need to get buy a new 2" hitch for the toad to replace the perfectly good 1.25" that is on there now.

So I'm thinking maybe I should just tow with the bikes on the back of the toad (covered of course).  It does make things a little longer going down the road, but this MH is 7-8' shorter than the last one.  I'm trying to think about any other downsides to doing this.

Does anyone else tow with bikes on the back of the toad? (ours is a Honda CRV)

Any thoughts on this appreciated.

 

[Darryl&Rita]

Put the bikes on the roof of the CRV. Less road dust and rain swill up there, be able to see them in the rear view camera, more secure.

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, brooksrimes said:

Does anyone else tow with bikes on the back of the toad? (ours is a Honda CRV)

We carried ours on the CR-V and did use covers on both bikes to minimize the dirt problems. We had little problems from that although if we traveled in wet weather it did take some cleaning once uncovered. Because we seldom traveled in wet weather, that was not a major issue and the cleaning was not too bad. We did that for about five years. 

[brooksrimes]

Thanks for the post, Kirk.  We're debating whether there will be a problem taking the bikes EVERYWHERE to groceries, restaurants, stores, parks, etc.  It's a little harder to park with the bikes sticking out, chance of another car hitting them, maybe someone trying to steal them (although we would have them locked down).  Did you ever have any of these or other problems?

Brooks

[Kirk W]

2 hours ago, brooksrimes said:

Did you ever have any of these or other problems?

There were times that they were a bit of a nuisance, especially in that they prevented access to open the tailgate. We didn't store ours on the bike rack when stopped for more than a few days. We spent a lot of our time in volunteer positions that supplied an RV spot and so bike security when parked was not generally an issue. I did use bike locks religiously and even when on the rack and covered. The rack we had could be folded down to allow use of the tailgate if the bikes were not on it. 

[Yahoo Ramblers]

You don’t need to buy a whole new hitch. You can get a 1.25 to 2 inch hitch adapter on Amazon. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them for sale in Walmart too. We used one for years on the back of our HHR toad.