Mounting Bicycles

[Silver Pony]

First Post. We purchased a AS FC 26U at the show in Tampa in Jan. In fact we don't take delivery until May. I've been reading the forum posts for months and gotten a lot of great info. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions going forward and my question for today is does anyone mount bicycles on the rear of their AS? I really don't want to compromise the exterior skin.

[AnnArborBob]

The safest way (for the Airstream) to mount a bicycle rack on the trailer is using a system such as the Fiama one sold by Airstream that uses the body as part of the attachment mechanism. Some people mount their bike rack on the front of the trailer on the tongue. If you have room you can keep the bikes in the tow vehicle bed if you have such an arrangement. The worst thing you can do is to mount a hitch on the back of the Airstream and use a hitch carrier.

[Firedog1]

We use a front hitch on our truck


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[dkottum]

We carried them in the bed of the truck for awhile but found it in convenient. So we bought the Airstream Fiamma Bike Rack from the Airstream Store. Very convenient to use, bikes stay clean, and balances some weight off the somewhat heavy Airstream tongue.

Limited to 70 lbs of bikes and the connections may be stressed by a heavily sprung or hitched tow vehicle. If you have a rear storage hatch into the Airstream, it may be more difficult to access.

[Phoenix]

See related thread for opposing view points:

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f44/...ke-131895.html

[Wingeezer]

Another user of the truck front hitch method - been working fine for us for 20yrs!

I might not do it if we had really fancy and expensive bikes though as they can get a bit messy up front, but then I suppose they would also on the back of the trailer.

We just have a couple of old mountain bikes we take along - and do get a lot of use out of them.

I do like the fact that I can keep an eye on them as we drive. I had to modify the standard hitch rack we use because initially with ur present 2500HD, the bikes rode too high. I cut & re-welded the bike rack so I can just barely see the handlebars /seats at the hood line to know that they are still secure.

There is a very minimal effect on truck headlights in our installation, but we are rarely on the road after dark so it is never much of an issue for us.

Brian.