We discussed numerous methods of transporting the trikes to locations where we can safely ride them in an area specifically designed for bike and trikes.
And by 'safe' I mean somewhere away from the street where the crazy drivers are. Once again, a rider was hit and killed by a drunk driver this past week while riding his velo on the street. This is not uncommon here, not too long ago there was an individual that purposely drove into a group of cyclists and sent many of them to the hospital in critical condition.
As for options we came up with the following list (in no particular order):
- Put them both into the truck, strap them down, and deal with it
- Remove the tonneau cover and leave the cargo bed exposed
- A minivan with stow & Go rear seating like a Dodge Caravan or Chrysler Town & Country
- Maybe another truck ... nothing new, as long as it had a longbed cargo bed
- A former medical transport van with the seats removed and a manual wheelchair ramp
- Modifying a trailer hitch cargo carrier to handle the trikes
- Order a dual Delta Trike hitch carrier online from CycleSimplex for $639 plus tax & shipping (standing side by side)
- Order a different hitch carrier online from ATOC Draftmaster for two Delta Trikes for $1,259 plus shipping (standing side by side)
- A 'custom built' trike hitch carrier for two trikes (flat, but two levels) found on Craigslist
Removing the tonneau cover from the truck is not really an option for us. Especially since we are about to take our travel trailer to the pacific northwest and plan on hiding the big generator under the cover because travel trailer notoriously do not come equipped with a generator or and storage bay for one.
We checked out 5 minivans this past weekend and the 'stow & go' seating would work ... as long as we put one trike in backwards and the other one facing the opposite direction. Doable, but a bit of a pain in the @$$ for two delta trikes. Besides, they wanted a LOT of money for these things ... even the oldest one we saw was $9,000 and it was disgusting inside. The dealership took it in on a trade but had not even attempted to clean any part of it except for the sticker that read 'needs to be reconditioned'. Crayon and magic marker scribbles everywhere, candy, food, dirt in every single crevice and crack, everything was sticky. The other ones we looked at were in better condition but started around $18,000 all the way to $37,000 (even though the label on the car was $37K, the internet price for the same VIN was only $23K).
-The custom trike hitch idea seemed good at first, but there were two problems. Our EZ-3 HD trikes are 80" long, tip to tail, and the custom rack was only 61" long and the second trike had to be lifted up and additional 4 feet to get on the second level. The seller offered to add a boom to lengthen the area to 80 inches but the stacking would have still been an issue. Sue is only 5' tall.
After we went through all of the options above we decided to spend as little money as possible and threw out the minivan, truck, and med transport van ideas for cost saving purposes. The trailer hitch options were also a bit expensive but far less than another vehicle whose main function was just to transport the trikes from A to B and back again. We whittled it down to the $639 CycleSimplex carrier only to find out they had shut down production and ordering for a few weeks to catch up after the pandemic.
Then we spied the trailer hitch tray on Craigslist. It had been posted for a month and the measurements were listed as 6 foot by 6 inches and 4 foot by 4 inches for $400. We were confused ... are you saying it's 78" long by 52" wide ? That would be incredible !
We called and left a VM, texted the number and sent an email as well asking if it was still available. After three days we finally got a reply that it was still for sale. We made arrangements to go check it out and verify the measurements.
It was exactly as described. The only problem was that he could not find the key for the hitch lock he put on it to prevent anyone from stealing it. But he had a really good shop and whipped out a cutter to get it off. We mounted it on my truck's hitch and off I went.
The next day I pulled out the pressure washer and cleaned it up. This is what I discovered. It is called a Tilt-A-Rack and ours was a model 700AVR. They were made around 2005-2008. All aluminum and weighing in at 116 lbs, can handle a 700 lb load and uses a 2" hitch for a class 4/5 hitch. The only pricing I found while researching it was $919 one one site and $879 on another, so I think we got a great deal.
When you pull the passenger side rail off, an extension about 30 inches long pulls out from underneath, then you pull the pin from the drivers side and the entire tray tilts with the extension basically being the ramp. You could drive an ATV up onto the tray and strap it down for transport. If you wanted to, you could pull a different pin close to the hitch and the entire tray will store vertically. It also came complete with lights and a harness. although they were in pretty bad shape so I removed them and went to Harbor freight for new ones.
Fun Fact ... while cleaning the underside I found the serial number plate and ours is etched with #24.
Extension Out
Tilted for Loading
