Pics of the PVC bike rack I am building for the roof of my popup.







Let's begin with the materials list with projected prices






Look at that bike rack...Isn't that a nice one??
Just back from Home Depot with the materials.





There is the camper, just sitting there waiting for a new bike rack and some warm weather.






No way are erasers long enough on a pencil, that isn't even how it is ending up but you should at least start with a plan and drawing.





After some hole drilling and head scratching I have started to lay it out, at this point it is still 10 feet long.
Yea I know, I'm getting a new driveway this summer.





That is how it is actually shaping up. Surprisingly it is very sturdy even though I only have 4 bolts in it.
I will add a center brace as soon as I figure out how far offset center needs to be for the big and little bikes. The big gap in the middle is for future A/C if I get one.





Front View.





And Rear View






The rack temporarily placed on the camper with bungee cords and 2 bikes of different sizes loaded





Front view of the camper with rack





Other side view





Although it looks like this bolt is missing a nut it is actually inside the smaller pipe. I had intended to place the nuts on the bottom of the pipe but realized a little too late that my hand won't fit inside a 3" PVC pipe even when it is empty let alone with stuff in it. That is why the bolts are so long....the nut can never fall off now.





Where the self locking nut actually is placed. You can see that I started to make the hole the pipe is in a little oblong, thinking maybe I could slip the nut in thru the front. Also notice the washers...I will keep an eye on them because with the pressure of being tightened and vibrations from road use they may begin to form to the inside of the pipe and cause the fitting to be loose..



Anybody ever tried painting PVC?? I thought it was impossible because nothing sticks to it. Not true, there is a product called ESP (easy surface prep) that you wipe the PVC with and let it set for 10 minutes then wipe off. Supposedly the PVC is ready for painting after a minimum of 2 hours wait and for up to 1 week. I plan on trying to find the stuff and painting the entire rack white to cover all of the PVC writing and protecting the metal hardware.

This project was a little more time consuming than I thought it was going to be, took me about 10 hours including any rework and cost about $80 if you consider somehow I ended up with 3 - 1"X10' pieces of PVC left over. It is still not completed, I have to add center braces under the 1" tire guides for stability, without the braces the tire guides will move up and down independently allowing for more flex and travel side to side for the bikes. I also still need to purchase the straps for now to hold the rack down, saw them in the trinkets box at the local hardware store for $4.99 each at 15' of strap.

I have emailed Viking and asked for a structural schematic for the roof so maybe I can semi-permanently mount the rack to the roof. If I don't permanently mount it to the roof I will have to figure out a temporary attaching method to hold the rack on the roof when the camper is up. Would be a pain to store at our campsite while setup, I would be afraid to just leave it sitting on the roof because it only weighs 35 lbs and a good gust of wind could cause trouble.