Quote:
Originally Posted by apackoftwo
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Yes, that was what I was talking about in my post, the bikes go on the front of the truck.
When we had our T2499 and our K2500 Suburban, carrying 2 adults bikes was an issue. A 2500 SUV is "way up there" to do a truck roof bike mount and I did not want to take the chance of falling trying to get the bikes on and off.
I ended up doing a front receiver on the Suburban. Being it was a 3/4 ton Suburban, I had more ground clearance then the 1/2 ton version.
This post has pics of my bike rack on the Suburban
https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...html#post89329
There is the good and the issues to work through in doing this.
The Good.
- The bikes ride very well on the front of the truck. The front truck suspension helps the bikes travel nice and smooth.
- You can see them and know they are OK.
-It is easy to load/unload the bikes into the rack. The easiest by far then any configuration I have used.
The issues,
- You will get some bugs smeared on the bikes, especially if you travel at night. Depending on how this affects you, it may or may not be a problem. It was not an issue for us.
- Transmission heat. This I know, on a GM 3/4 ton truck (year 2000 to 2007) the auxiliary transmission cooler is not very large. Two adult bikes will raise the towing temps by 2 degrees just about all the time from the air flow reduction of the bikes. GM on the 3/4 ton trucks of that era at least gives you a real transmission temp gage so you can read what he temperature is. The 1/2 ton trucks never had the real Gage with graduations. The 2 degrees for 2 bikes was not a problem in my case.
I have a camping buddy who had the same truck, just the 8.1 liter engine where mine was the 6.0 liter. He had 2 adult bikes & 2 kids bikes on the front. This many bikes will create a problem. He was down south camping for the summer and on the way home towing the camper in 90 F heat, he started overheating the truck. He was 4 states away from home and tried to re-arrange the bikes, add pipes to try and get more air into the radiator, none of that worked in his case. He ended up taking the 2 kids bikes apart and putting them in the camper to get home. Point: 4 bikes will not work on that truck.
-Head lights. This was a problem for me. Cindy's bike has larger tires and would partially block the headlights. I reworked the bike rack to lower her tires down so the light shined over the tires. That made it at least usable but I really needed to drop the tires several inches lower. Do no forget ground clearance when lowering the bikes.
- Turn signals. Each state may look at this differently but there are federal lighting laws that regulate the auto industry on what is acceptable for turn signals and how many degrees to the side and straight ahead must be seen for the lights to comply. I do not recall the DOT standard now, but this needs to be checked.
Pickup trucks have snow plows on the front of them that totally block the headlights and turn signals. These vehicles comply by adding secondary head lights and turn signals above the plow when it is fully up.
Bicycles on the front of a vehicle is allowed in some cases, at least in OH, as the city of Columbus has bike rack on some of the front of the public transportation buses. They are promoting, ride the bike and the bus. You put the bike on the front of the bus, ride the bus, get off and go on your way with the bike. But the bus is wider then a 1/2 ton to 1 ton average PU truck, SUV or van. The bikes fit in the space between the headlights and turn signals as the buss is wider compared to the bikes. Point being, this comes back the lighting regulations for the front of the vehicle need to be inline.
My use of the front bike rack was limited to 1 1/2 years as we changed campers to the T310SR and went to the F350 truck. I felt I was on the edge of complying with the lighting regulations. If we would of kept the truck/bike rack, I was prepared and was going to add secondary turn signals on the front of the rack and figure out how to lower Cindy's' bike further.
The bikes do ride well up front, just passing along some of the things to be considered and worked through.
Hope this helps
John