Carry 2 bikes on the front of your travel trailer when the back of the rig is not the right spot. Telescoping legs work around propane tanks and generators, locking hooks help steady bikes on rough roads, and the post folds up at camp.
The front of a travel trailer rarely looks the same from rig to rig. Some have dual propane tanks, some have a generator tray, and some have both. The Stratus uses articulating, telescoping legs so you can position the rack around what is already there, then load your bikes up front instead of trying to make room on the rear bumper. Instead of checking your rear cameras constantly to make sure your bikes are still there, you'll know it's solid on your trailer so you can focus on your ride ahead.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Hi, everyone, I'm Evangeline right here at etrailer. Today we're taking a look at the Swagman Stratus, specifically at how it fits here on our 2016 Aliner Scout. Now this bike rack is gonna fit every trailer differently with how the trailer works and where it may mount. So focusing on our Aliner here, there's some unique things that we're gonna take a look at. And later in this video, I'll also show you how I get a bike rounded on top of this bike rack. But first off, where do I have this mounted So this is a bike rack is designed to go onto the A frame tongue of your trailer.
So you can see here that I actually had to move some wiring around so it wasn't pinched by the mounting brackets. I have this right over here towards the front when, in some situations, you may wanna go a little bit further back. It really does depend on what you are tearing. You'll also wonder why it's so high up. Well, this is designed for if you do have propane or generators or other things back here that needs to go up and over with the bikes.
So just a quick reference point, with exactly where I have it mounted, this sits 17 inches apart right down here. And then as for the height, this sits about 32 inches up above our trailer tongue. Now that number can change. You could go a little higher up, you could go a little lower, since this is adjustable, and you can either offset towards the back or to the front or to one side or the other. For the Aliner specifically though, I do have it offset more towards the trailer, just to give me a little bit more clearance here by the jack.
And because the roof comes up to an A shape, we had plenty of clearance there for our bikes, so I wasn't concerned about that at all. All right, now let's load a bike up. This actually has a 50 pound per bike break capacity, which is a lot. So you do have to be more mindful of, well, can you 50 pounds of bike up onto this rack. I highly recommend doing this process with its second person just to support the other end of the bike as you get it up there.
Now for me personally, I'm going to use a step ladder just because I'm gonna do this all by myself and I'm gonna do this with a much lighter bike. Plus, I'm gonna attach this to the front cradle of the bike rack. But if you we inchesre to do this with your own bike, I definitely recommend securing this, your heaviest bike towards the back cradle and then your lighter bike up towards the front just because of weight distribution. So here we have our cradles all set up. Our straps are to this side, the mast is sitting up. You also have the option of taking the hook off the mast if that helps you out here. There we go. And now I'm gonna grab the bike and I'm gonna get up there. All right, our focus here is to get the bike onto the cradles. And then you can adjust these cradles side to side as needed to better fit your bike. You have little grooves that your tires can fit into depending on the width of your tires. So see how that fits nicely in there. I'm gonna first secure the hook. Let's see if I can reach up, up and away. There we go. That's almost on there. Nice. Okay, so with that hook, gonna bring that down. Nice. And that's gonna ratchet down onto our bike's frame. Now, ideally, since this is a frame-mounted rack, you won't want to do this with your nicer paint styles 'cause there is a possibility of that scuffing. On the other side though, that hook is lockable. So it's nice to know that if you are parked somewhere, maybe at the gas station as you're filling up, these bikes will be locked into place without having to deal with a separate cable lock. All right, so I'm just putting the straps over our wheel. I have noticed for our thinner road bike tires, it doesn't quite touch the rims, but definitely check out my full demo with a mountain bike up here. And that was definitely a better fit where it really filled up the whole cradle. But for visualization, this is what that bike rack looks like with a bike on there here with our pop-up camper. So a big reason people might consider this is sometimes your trailer or your camper does not have a rear hitch receiver. Like in the case of the Aliner Scout, I have a spared tire behind the camper and no way to put a bike rack on there. Another reason is maybe you cannot bring bikes with you. For example, in this camper, there's no space on the inside to load the bikes, so that really leaves me with the front of the trailer as a mounting point for bikes. Like the towing vehicle I have, I can't really put bikes on top of that. So this gonna be the way I can do so. And an extra special perk is that with this sitting up here, I'll be able to see the bikes behind the vehicle right in my rear view mirror. I have a piece of mind of knowing they're okay and they're still attached on there. Definitely check out the full review video if you're curious about the different specs and how it works, or check out the assembly video once you're ready to take a look at this bike rack and put it all together on your own camper. If you are using it on your own camper, I would love to hear all about it. Send us a picture or review, especially let us know how you are mounting it if you had to go around propane tanks or generators or other wiring harnesses. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us here at etrailer. This was a look at how the Swagman Stratus bike rack looks and works and fits here on our 2016 Aliner Scout. My name is Angeline, I hope you enjoyed this journey.
I was very happy with the overall design and quality of the bike rack, especially the adaptability in the mounts and tubular uprights to allow for variations in trailer design, sizing and spacing for optional equipment that the rack has to fit over or around. Tube stock is fairly beefy without being overkill and adding excessive weight, especially since the bulk of the weight will contribute toward added trailer tongue weight. My only gripe is that I ran into a problem during assembly that took a little extra time to clean up and fix to make the rack useable. The main crossbar mount tubes had leftover beadblasting media stuck inside that appeared to have then been coated in powdercoat and baked into the hole that the upright tubes telescope into, keeping the crossbar from sliding down anywhere near the "minimum insertion" height for proper mounting. Spent some time with a chisel getting the powdercoated media broken up and cleand out of the tubes and it assembled fine from then on. Other than that, very happy with the product and would highly recommend it for those with limited mounting options and in need of unique rack that allows bikes to come along on the trip!
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