1. Simple fork mounts
2. Vehicle racks
3. Public transit bus racks

Transport solutions

Transporting a recumbent by car can present a challenge. Long wheelbase and tandem bikes are generally too long to put on an ordinary trunk rack sideways. Even short wheelbase bikes may not hang on trunk racks very well, due to their general layout. Don't let me stop you from trying it, though. Rooftop racks that combine a wheel tray and fork mount work best for many recumbents.

Some would say bicycles should replace motor vehicles, rather than being transported on them, and perhaps object to my even discussing how to attach bikes to cars. I respect that choice, but not everyone is ready for that level of commitment. Probably there are a lot more folks ready to bike rather than drive for certain kinds of trips.

Simple fork mounts

If you have a pickup truck, SUV, or van, there are simple fork mounts, available from multiple sources, including your Local Bike Shop, REI, and Nashbar, for about $20. These are basically just a fork mount incorporating a flange with bolt holes for mounting to a surface; some allow you to secure the bike with a padlock. You can mount several to a piece of plywood, put it in the pickup bed or inside the SUV/van, and attach your bike forks. That will keep the bikes upright, and you just have to fasten them down with cargo straps. If you're really trying to cram multiple bikes in, attaching the fork mounts at an angle may help you avoid handlebar interference.

I think the best of these are Delta Bike Hitch Pro fork mounts, with a slot and a red rubber washer in the middle, which keeps the skewer position centered for easier fork mounting. (Otherwise you need two hands to control the bike, and a third hand to adjust the mount skewer.) Upright riders with pickups sometimes attach these fork mounts on top of the front wall of the bed, and this will likely work for long-wheelbase recumbents and tandems as well. Of course, if you have a short-bed pickup and a long bike, you might want to check on how much is going to stick out the back.

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Vehicle racks

Delta Stableloader (Foxborough MA/Redondo Beach CA) http://www.deltacycle.com/Stableloader

A telescoping steel gadget with padded ends and a mounting track, that you can attach without screws inside a pickup bed or the body of an SUV or van. It comes with two Delta Bike Hitch fork mounts (see above). If you like, you can also mount one or two of the Delta Wheel Hitch units, which sort of look like upside-down forks and securely hold the dismounted front wheel of your bike. For SWB recumbents you can just attach the Stableloader far enough back in the pickup bed to provide clearance for the boom and cranks. You may also want a cargo strap to secure the rear part of your bikes. A lot of Local Bike Shops sell Delta products.

Swagman (manufacturer site) http://www.swagman.net/
Swagman bike racks (online dealer) http://www.swagmanbikeracks.com/

The Swagman XC two-bike folding hitch-mount* rack (SKU 64650) should be great for SWB MWB & CLWB recumbents; its wheel hoops are adjustable for wheelbases from 16 to 52 inches. Bikes are secured at the top by ratcheting foam-padded hooks. With a 2-inch hitch receiver you can add a two-bike add-on kit. These racks fold up when not in use, on or off the vehicle. Swagman also makes roof racks. Inland NW dealer as of 5/06: Spoke N Sport, 212 N Division. Neither of these sites works very well on dialup.

ATOC Rack Products (Lynnwood WA) http://www.atoc.com/

DraftMaster hitch-mount* racks can carry LWB or tandem bikes on a slant up the back of your vehicle, instead of up on the roof. ATOC's Tandem Topper is a wheel-tray roof rack, similar to the Yakima Steelhead, but extended to accept tandems/LWB. They have a special swiveling fork mount, so you can attach one end of your tandem or LWB bike at a time; no more lifting the whole bike over your head to put it on the roof rack. The Tandem Topper may be the best solution for LWB on sporty cars.

Recreational Equipment Incorporated (everywhere!) http://www.rei.com/

Your local REI store can fix you up with the familiar and sturdy Yakima roof-racks, which also adapt to skis, kayaks, canoes, streamlined cargo boxes etc. Yakima gear can usually be set up to lock and unlock with a single key.

Yakima (Arcata CA) http://www.yakima.com/

Yakima roof-racks home page. Yakima has roof-top and hitch-mount systems that will probably work great for SWB/MWB recumbents. They have a special tandem mount available, but I like the Tandem Topper design better. Yakima also has a single-wheel bike trailer now, which looks very similar to the original Yak model B.O.B. trailer.

SportRack (Québec) http://www.sportrack.com/
Thule (Sweden) http://www.thulegroup.com/

Two more roof-rack lines.

* Hitch-mount bike racks require a 2-inch or 1¼-inch steel box receiver meant for a serious trailer hitch: if you have a compact or sports car this could be a problem. Suitable receiver kits do seem to be available for all small trucks, such as Ranger, S10, Toyota. The steel receiver kit would be installed on your vehicle by a local welding shop that does this work; you can check the yellow pages or ask at a local RV dealer.

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Bus racks

You may be able to put your recumbent on public transit bus racks. This should work with many SWB recumbents. I did this successfully with a SWB ASS Vision R40, which had an unencumbered rear wheel. With types other than SWB, such as MWB and CLWB, one key question is whether the wheelbase will fit in the rack. With LWB 'bents you can probably forget about it. There's no way to know for sure, short of taking the bike to a bus zone and trying it. If there's a transit center or "park & ride" close by, where the drivers take a break and the buses sit for a while, that should help. Be polite and ask the driver if it's okay.

If one had a SWB recumbent with thrust braces, or a rear rack, that interfered with putting the hook on the rear wheel, one could put it on the bus rack with the front at the hook end, and put the hook over the frame in front of the headset. Of course, that might not be so great for the paint, and you'd have to be careful not to let the spring-loaded hook damage the front derailleur and chain rings. Perhaps one could zip-tie some sort of protective padding to the frame.

Here's a thought: if you don't actually ask the bus people for permission to use their racks with a recumbent, their lawyers can't tell them to say no.

Your local bus people will probably want you to get a permit to use their racks. Here, they make you watch a short video about how to use them, before they give you the pass.

The most common type of these racks has a wheel tray a few inches wide, made of steel tubing, and a pivoting spring-loaded hook, which normally goes over the front wheel of an upright bike, without front fender. With a SWB recumbent, probably you'll put the bike on facing the other way and put the hook over the rear wheel. I did this twice a day with a Vision R40 in 2000 with no problems; I got static from a bus driver only once. I didn't even take the big mesh seat off, unless it was an express bus that was going on the freeway. With your bike, you may of course choose to always remove the seat and take it inside. It probably depends on the sail area of your particular seat.

I used to think this was restricted to 26-inch wheels, but apparently bus racks are used a lot with mountain, kid's, and stunt bikes with 20-inch wheels. This opens possibilities for 20/20 SWB recumbents, maybe including suspension recumbents. But at least on my local bus system, it seems like the hook grips the bike more firmly if it's grabbing something bigger than a 20-inch wheel.

Sometimes recumbent USS handlebars will be a little wider than the spacing provided for by the bus racks, maybe tending to interfere with other people's upright bikes. This could incline one toward ASS recumbents, if one wanted to use the bus racks.

In case you're curious how I transport my trike: I have a Toyota pickup with a gull-wing style aluminum toolbox mounted. The bed comes with steel tiedown loops inside at all four corners, but the toolbox interferes with access to the front ones. I bought two short lengths of light galvanized chain, and two stainless steel snap links, to hook one end of each piece to one of the front tiedown loops. I open the tailgate, put the trike in the bed, back-to-front, with the rear wheel against the toolbox, and run a cargo strap around the seat back hooked to the two tiedown extenders.

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I'm told you can actually transport most tadpole trikes inside most hatchbacks, simply by opening the hatch, folding down the car's rear seat, and putting the trike in back-to-front, with its rear wheel between the car's front seats. You can often put a tadpole trike on a very ordinary car-trunk rack, by rotating the trike 90° as you pick it up, so the bottom of the trike is facing the car, and placing the center frame tube in the rack, where the top tube goes with an upright bike. If the chain is on the right side of the frame tube, you want the front of the trike facing the left side of the car, so that the chain is above the frame tube when it's on the rack.