Hitch mounted Thule bike rack: a fitting anomaly 🤔 any ideas

[Ridgeway]

Picked this hitch mounted Thule rack up at a Decathlon in France a couple of years back, didn’t need it at the time but saw it as we walked out the door and it was €120 what a bargain !

Roll forward a year or so and we needed to use it on my wife‘s car to pick up her bike. First time i‘d used it and i wasn’t very familiar with it at all and just couldn’t really get the bike on the rack well at all. Figured it was just me and put it back in the garage.

Then another couple of times and same thing…. (different bike) so had a look at it during the summer and to me there was just no way the clamping arms would ever work as they are too long. Had a look to see if there is any adjustment but for the life of me can’t find any.

So I’ve pretty much concluded that some parts have been mixed up and maybe why it was sold off cheap, maybe someone made up what they thought was one rack but….

So before i start to modify it and overcome the issues is there anything obvious I’ve missed ? Maybe it’s as simple as buying shorter arms ? Although i do fancy just cutting down the ones i already have

Here’s a couple of pics showing why i think the arms are too long:

The rack is a Thule Euroway 920

 

[rb62]

Is this the one?

 

[Ridgeway]

Yes that’s the model, only difference is that the one in the video seems to fit

 

[scotjimland]

I have the same rack , they do look too long, but will measure the arms tomorrow and let you know ..too dark and wet tonight

I wouldn't cut just yet.. spare arms are expensive ..

 

[Ridgeway]

I have the same rack , they do look too long, but will measure the arms tomorrow and let you know ..too dark and wet tonight

I wouldn't cut just yet.. spare arms are expensive ..

Cheers Jim.

Actually took the short arm apart and there’s nothing to cut really as the extruded Alu profile is only 15mm and by my calculations the arms (both) over reach by 40mm making it nigh on impossible to secure a bike unless you accept that both bikes are at an angle which certainly seems wrong…

I’m thinking some parts are the wrong way around causing this spacing issue, it’s 40mm on both arms.

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[The Coops]

One clamps on the crossbar and the other clamps on the downtube?

 

[Ridgeway]

One clamps on the crossbar and the other clamps on the downtube?

Yeah if they were flexible nice idea and appreciate it.

 

[dunnah01]

Can't you just tilt the front frame forwards until the crossbar clamps line up?

 

[Minxy]

Hasn't the upright frame which the arms clamp to got adjustment knobs to tilt it towards the vehicle thus allowing the arms to line up correctly?

Also on some of the images on the web those knobs are on the inside of the upright bar not the outside, don't know if that makes a difference to the adjustment of them though.

 

[dalspa]

My initial thought was on same line as Minxy but the Thule video appears to show that the black clamp to upright bar is dished so that the bar can only be upright. If so , then I would get a couple of straight lengths of tube (to match existing) about 200/250 long to fit in the black clamp and using suitable size spacers and ss bolts bring all in alignment. Check first, though, that the frame will fold okay with this modification. Considering how cheap the rack was in the first place it is worth doing some modification to get it to work.
Ps. Another fix would be to have the upright frame legs bent towards the car, but this would need careful machine bending.

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[GMLS]

Can you not just angle both bikes out at the top? As long as the wheels are firmly strapped into the channels and the lock bars used correctly (ideally with a bike lock around both) No problem.We have 3 channels on our Atera Strada and I do this when taking just 2 MTB's bikes to avoid having to turn the handlebars through 90 degrees (one touches the rear panel otherwise)

 

[EuroTrotters]

I canto see anything wrong with it !?

 

[Ridgeway]

Hasn't the upright frame which the arms clamp to got adjustment knobs to tilt it towards the vehicle thus allowing the arms to line up correctly?

Also on some of the images on the web those knobs are on the inside of the upright bar not the outside, don't know if that makes a difference to the adjustment of them though.

The upright bar actually fits into slots in the base that secure it at 90 degrees to the rack, I did try it out of these slots but it moves around a lot and the securing knobs are only really there to stop it moving up and down.

 

[Cush]

Does it angle back a few degrees when on the hitch and bring it more in line with the vertical. Don’t think I would worry about a forward lean of the bikes.

PS edit. More than happy to pay carriage if you want to free up some space in your garage

 

[Ridgeway]

My initial thought was on same line as Minxy but the Thule video appears to show that the black clamp to upright bar is dished so that the bar can only be upright. If so , then I would get a couple of straight lengths of tube (to match existing) about 200/250 long to fit in the black clamp and using suitable size spacers and ss bolts bring all in alignment. Check first, though, that the frame will fold okay with this modification. Considering how cheap the rack was in the first place it is worth doing some modification to get it to work.
Ps. Another fix would be to have the upright frame legs bent towards the car, but this would need careful machine bending.

Bending the upright was one thought I had last night, shouldn’t be too difficult to do. It’s one idea on the list now

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[Ridgeway]

Can you not just angle both bikes out at the top? As long as the wheels are firmly strapped into the channels and the lock bars used correctly (ideally with a bike lock around both) No problem.We have 3 channels on our Atera Strada and I do this when taking just 2 MTB's bikes to avoid having to turn the handlebars through 90 degrees (one touches the rear panel otherwise)

It’s what I had to do when I used it. It completely goes against my logic as pushing the weight further out isn’t good and any bike will be less stable at an angle.

I’ll try to set it up to show how much it pushes the bikes out

 

[Ridgeway]

Does it angle back a few degrees when on the hitch and bring it more in line with the vertical. Don’t think I would worry about a forward lean of the bikes.

PS edit. More than happy to pay carriage if you want to free up some space in your garage

You can angle the rack upwards on the hitch in order to compensate for the bikes angle in the rack, this again was what I did last time but that just doesn’t seem normal to me

 

[Ridgeway]

I canto see anything wrong with it !?

Clamping arms appear to be too long vs the rack base.

This may well just be user muppetry but I wanted to be sure

 

[DandG5515]

If that was fitted to a van, the handlebars could hit the the back of the van if the bikes were upright hence the design of leaning the bikes.

 

[TDub49]

Possibly overthinking this? Looking at the video so helpfully posted by rb62, the clamps are designed to fit on to the down tubes on the bikes rather than the crossbars. It is not possible from the video to work out what sort of angle the whole rack is at on the tow-hitch but I guess that's where the bike lean angle adjustment would be if it is needed. Certainly does not appear to be anything "wrong" with the rack otherwise - looks pretty much identical to the one in the video. Maybe needs a little getting used to?

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[simsy56]

I have a thule 2 bike rack, and the base is much longer than yours. The clamp arms are adjustable, I have used mine on the upright part of the frame, and angled sometimes from the horizontal part. I have 2 exactly the same e-bikes and I clamp them both in a different manner, to get the best solution. Also the bike frames offer a multitude of clamping points as one is facing east, and one west.

As in your photo, the clamps are both level, really no two bike frames are going to be exactly level with the top part of your clamps, if you clamp lower down the frame, then the angle would be much different. Reversing the clamp from facing down, to facing up, will also alter the angle on the clamp arms.

There will be a way, it's just finding it.

Craig

 

[rb62]

Surely the arms don't have to be at 90° to the frame so it's a question of putting the bike on and putting the clamps in a suitable position so that the bikes are upright.

 

[scotjimland]

Measured up.. centre of tube to knob

long arm 14"
short arm 9" aprox

can also confirm..
The tube clamps are in the centre of the wheel rails when horizontal

looks like you have the wrong arms

e-bikes vertical when on rack

 

[Minxy]

I've looked at a load of images etc and the long clamp is always angled so reducing the actual distance from the upright bar, similarly the shorter one, neither are positioned horizontally.

 

[Ridgeway]

Measured up.. centre of tube to knob

long arm 14"
short arm 9" aprox

can also confirm..
The tube clamps are in the centre of the wheel rails when horizontal

looks like you have the wrong arms

View attachment 849981


e-bikes vertical when on rack



View attachment 849982

Thank you so much Jim.

I can see on yours that the upright bar is actually angled back slightly, just a few degrees. Looks like the part that connects the upright bar to the rack itself is different and on mine is what causes it to be upright and hence it makes it very difficult to attach the arms

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[offagen]

We have a Thule hitch-mount bike rack that we use when touring in Europe without the toad. The longer arm is intended to reach the crossbar of a man's bike, which is quite a bit higher than the top of the rack, so the arm is angled upwards. It becomes a potential problem if the outer bike is a women's step-through, or of the folding type with no crossbar. In that case it's possibly better to shorten the arm, which means the outer square tube and the inner threaded rod*, or buy a shorter arm.

The arms can clamp onto any convenient part of the bikes' frames but the higher the better for stability.

* Shortening the inner rod might require more thread to be cut.

It looks like you got quite a bargain.

 

[RustyRuss]

You will soon discover that the top tube on your bike is higher than the mounting tube on the rack. The arm is effectively the longest side of a triangle, the other two sides being an imaginary vertical line from the top tube of your bike and a horizontal line running from the mounting tube of the rack. If you had the gripper tubes the same distance apart as the wheel mouldings then you wouldn’t have any flexibility when it came to fitting the bike on the rack. To mangle what Scotty from Startrek said, “It’s Physics Jim, but not as we know it!”
Don’t shorten the arms! You’ll bugger up the bike rack!!

Cheers!

Russ

 

[pappajohn]

One clamps on the crossbar and the other clamps on the downtube?

And what clamps the second bike?

 

[EuroTrotters]

Clamping arms appear to be too long vs the rack base.

This may well just be user muppetry but I wanted to be sure

I will check ours when I get back. But I think ours lie back slightly

 

[pappajohn]

I simply cut the clamp arms to suit my need.
I only carry one Dutch style Lecky bike on the outermost wheel track.
One clamp to main down tube, one to seat tube.

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