By Chris Dougherty
Chris Dougherty is a certified RV technician. Here is a letter he received from a reader while he was serving as RVtravel.com’s technical editor.
Dear Chris,
We own a 25-foot 2006 Hi-Lo Classic. I’d like to mount a class II hitch and a two-bike rack on the rear of the Hi-Lo. The hitch can be mounted with hardware to allow for the bike rack but the reduced tongue weight is the problem. Do you think that installing 80 pounds of counter-weight center of the trailer and forward of the front axle would correct the tongue weight issue? —George B.
Hi George,
To answer your question, yes, transferring some weight to the front of the trailer will offset the added weight on the back, but do this only if you’re sure you’re not overloading the trailer. Before loading the 80 pounds of rocks in the trailer, though, I’d go through the coach and see if I could move the weight by reorganizing what’s already in there. That said, 80 pounds isn’t too much, and the added weight on the rear bumper may not result in worsened handling at all. It might be worth a test and a trip to the local scales to see how the trailer reacts to the bicycles. Good luck!
##RVDT1859
How about a tongue mounted bike rack..
they ride much better in that location ( no rag dolling ) May not work for you though.
Amazing the number of Rv crashes that have stuff on the back of the trailer.
How about measuring the tongue weight without the bike rack and the measuring the distance from axle to hitch and axle to bike rack. A simple calculation would tell how much the bikes reduce the tongue weight. Then they’d know if they need to add anything forward if the axle to keep the hitch weight in the correct range.
Really enjoy all your knowledge. We have learned so much by reading your columns. Question: Every time we store our 2016 35′ Holiday Rambler for a few weeks. We turn off fuse box, stop battery with switch. But we are still getting a battery drain on house and chassis battery. Brand new house batteries replaced via warranty. What is happening. No one can figure out why. Ideas?
Even though you’re disconnecting your batteries you still have small battery drains such as your propane detector, CO detector that remain connected unless you remove them when you park.