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Classic bicycle transportation using a minivan: Tips, tricks and pics?

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Borrowed this photo from elsewhere on this forum since it's relevant to this thread.

This vehicle is surely wider than the average minivan (looks like probably closer to 6' wide, as opposed to 4' wide like the average minivan). Wow, looks like about 11 bikes in a row.

Noting that there's some alternating of positions, some bikes pointing forwards, some backwards, it makes sense that this may help to get `em squeezed closer together. Though in a minivan, this might be tougher (or impossible) to do for certain reasons.

Also, the height advantage on this truck likely helps a good deal in terms of getting bikes squeezed very closely together since you have space to get your arms between the bikes from the top and get things dialed in just right. In a minivan, ya kinda need to just slide the bikes in from the rear and hope for the best. Though a minivan's side doors will allow access for further fine adjusting, but it's just more difficult.

Just eyeballing this photo though, it gives hope of getting at least six bikes, side by side, into a 4' wide minivan. If I wind up being able to cram 5 to 6 bikes in my Odyssey, I'll be extremely happy, that's plenty.

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This vehicle is surely wider than the average minivan (looks like probably closer to 6' wide, as opposed to 4' wide like the average minivan). Wow, looks like about 11 bikes in a row.

Noting that there's some alternating of positions, some bikes pointing forwards, some backwards, it makes sense that this may help to get `em squeezed closer together.
Looks like some version of a high-cube van, with a bulkhead door connecting the cab to the body and an optional side-access door on the right.

Alternating direction from one bike to the next is definitely the way to go. I discovered the same thing when hanging bikes in my basement using one bike hook on each floor joist overhead. First bike hangs by its front wheel; second bike hangs by its back wheel; third is front-up; fourth is back-up, and so on. There is still enough clearance that I can swing a bike upward and outward to examine it without disturbing the ones on either side. (I don't need to remove pedals or turn handlebars, either, though that does make things easier in a vehicle.)
 
It's pretty hard to beat a van for bike transport. The bikes are upright and inside out of the weather. And the load height of the van makes them so much easier to load. We have an older Dodge Caravan with the stow and go seats and a full size Chevy Express van. I have gotten several bikes at a time into each of them. The advantage of a longer van is that you can put bikes in and still use the front seat(s) if you have to. I do have a 2 position rack with a 4x4 attached to the base that I can use. I don't leave it in all the time as we use the vans for other things. The rack is nice because the bikes are upright with a wheel in the rack. I bungee or strap them in and they ride well. I need to build a bigger better one.

I was a pick-up truck man for most of my driving life but have seen the light as far as the versatility of vans. My wife wouldn't be without one but as an antique dealer she's always hauling stuff. Minivans are much more fuel efficient than my big van and ride better too. I keep my big van mostly for towing a trailer. They meet our needs and work well for us.

We've had good luck with our Caravan (knocking on wood). It's our second one. Our '94 went 250K and our current one an '09 has 180k on it.
Both have the 3.3 V6. It's easy to work on and parts are plentiful.
I'd probably replace it with a Honda or Toyota now as I'm not sure how confident I am with the newer Dodges/Chryslers. But that's a whole different rabbit hole to go down. Like in buying any vehicle do research and talk to other owners before buying one.
 
...We've had good luck with our Caravan (knocking on wood). It's our second one. Our '94 went 250K and our current one an '09 has 180k on it. Both have the 3.3 V6... I'm not sure how confident I am with the newer Dodges/Chryslers....
A friend of mine has a `99 Caravan (pretty sure it's a 3.3), 250k and still going strong. Though at 220k or so it needed a bit of tranny work and the fuel pump needed replacing at about 200k. But otherwise it's been great, never left anyone stranded, I've driven it personally at least 1,000 miles or so, quiet, comfortable and loads of cargo space. Not very powerful though, struggles to get up hills when loaded, no so with my Odyssey 3.5... but then again, this Caravan does have 250k on it.

I rented a newer Chrysler minivan one time for a week, overall I as impressed. But just recently I was chatting with the head mechanic at my local auto shop, I've been dealing with this shop for 20 years, these guys are top-notch, somehow the topic of new Chryslers came up and the guy just started shaking his head. In sum, they told me to stay far away from any newer Chrysler products... FWIW.
 
Ideally, the tall roof van is the winning situation. They can be bought used for about 20k nowadays. Realistically however, the bike business isn't very profitable financially and 20k may as well be 20 million to most bike flippers. Many of the available mini-vans are mechanical nightmares, that's why I had those early little Honda Odyssey's with the civic 4 banger, c.1995 to 1998. They were reliable and fairly inexpensive to operate, by 1999 Honda discontinued them and made a bigger, porkier van with a sliding door and a 6 cylinder, those I didn't like.
Up in rural Oregon coastal regions, the mail delivery people tend to snap up the little first gen Oddy's, they also like the 2nd gen CRV and all the Honda Element cars. Many of the mail delivery guys go to Japan to find right hand drive ones so they can stuff mailboxes from the drivers seat. Japan has a lot of low mileage but well maintained second hand Honda cars, but the right hand drive thing is a problem unless you are delivering mail.
I'd like to find a low mileage '04 CRV with Manual transmission, I've seen them but they are scarce. I've never seen a manual trans 4 cyl Oddy, but many Elements are.
 
Update...

Firstly, thanks again fellow CABE-people for all the helpful replies within this thread. 👍

Today I worked on a DIY system to hold bicycles safely and securely in place in the back of my 2010 Odyssey minivan. It's not yet finished, but figured I'd share what I've come up with so far.

After experimenting, I've determined that I should be able to fit a total of 7 balloon tire bicycles, upright, side by side, in the back of my minivan, at least with all rear seats removed from the van and with pedals, handlebars and seats removed from the bikes. In some cases, handlebars and seats might be able to remain on the bikes.

Out of assorted 2"X4" and 1"X4" / 1"X5" lumber, I screwed together three L-shaped front-wheel holder / stand units. I then created a horizontal floor brace (2"X4") that the three wheel-holder units can be lag-bolted onto. This horizontal brace has two "stops" that stick out and rest against the backs of the front seat mounts, to prevent the brace (and wheel-holder units) from sliding forwards.

This system is designed to be modular, so that the wheel-holders can be bolted onto the horizontal brace at any desired location, to adjust for different situations. Though for now, the default is to have one on each outside edge and one in the center.

With the three L-shaped stand units spaced equally apart in the back of this 49" wide van, three bikes can be held in the holders and two bikes can be squeezed into each of the two remaining gaps between the held bikes. Thus seven bikes can be secured, upright. Or, with one rear / side passenger seat installed (and the other rear / side seat and small center seat removed), 4 bikes can be secured / carried.

The "formula" is simple, these types of bikes are about 7" wide max (with pedals, handlebars and seats removed), the widest measurements being the outside edges of the crank arms and the rear axle. Thus, for a van with 49" of interior cargo width, 49 divided by 7" = 7 bikes. But note that in many cases, bikes can be staggered in such a way to get them even closer together. At the same time, some bikes might have side "bumpers" that stick out, making them effectively wider than 7".

Note the 1/2" diameter iron pipe that is held in place across the tops of the L-shaped wheel-holders by the red tie-down straps, hooked to the rear passenger seat hooks in the floor of the van. This should positively prevent all seven bicycles (which could be over 400 pounds total) from ever violently shifting forwards towards the cockpit in the event of a severe high-speed panic stop. (Side note, this van has no interior tie down hooks of any type, the hooks in the floor for the rear seats is all there is to hook to.)

When not in use, the L-shaped wheel-holder units can be easily unbolted from the 2"X4" floor support and everything is then easy to move and store. The wheel-holder units stack pretty nicely.

I also just added dowels that slide into sides of the L-shaped wheel holders to pin the front wheels in place, so the bikes cannot roll backwards. So with this system, three bikes are not only held securely upright, but also held from moving forwards / backwards. Then the bikes that get squeezed in-between can be strapped to the three held bikes (with padding in-between each bike of course). The black pipe keeps everything from moving forwards in any case.

I'm sure this could have been designed in a more economical manner, but I was somewhat influenced by the scrap wood I already had lying around, etc. I look forward to seeing what other Cabers come up with in terms of bicycle securing in their vans.

Though I'm sure some folks might feel that such a system of securing might not be necessary. I happen to be nutty about keeping the interior of my van in mint condition. As well, I hope to keep any bikes I am carrying from getting scratched or dented, etc. Having a system for positive securing certainly reduces the chances of anything getting damaged.

I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking. Thanks again to everyone for the helpful info. I will soon be ready to carry seven bikes at once in my old Honda!

So... is anyone selling seven really nice, complete, original, deluxe, postwar balloon tire bikes? Gee, I'd settle for even just one. Please let me know, looking to buy! Starting pretty much from scratch with my collection at this point. :)

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Note the iron pipe that is held in place across the tops of the L-shaped wheel holders by the red tie-down straps, hooked to the rear passenger seat hooks in the floor of the van. This should positively prevent all seven bicycles (which could be over 400 pounds worth) from ever violently shifting forwards towards the cockpit in the event of a severe high-speed panic stop. (Side note, this van has no interior tie down hooks of any type, the hooks in the floor for the rear seats is all there is to hook to.)
Great job on the retention strategy to keep everything from sliding forward. I would suggest actually trying one or two panic stops (at least from lower speeds) to see how stable it is. I am always surprised by how much force (or inertia or whatever) can propel things around the cabin that seemed to be well-secured and turned out not to be. The bikes might rotate upwards on their forward axles (i.e. whichever wheel is strapped into the rack) and then come down again. If you're braking hard enough to trigger the ABS, that's probably the most deceleration you'll have for testing purposes, short of actually hitting something.

P.S. Those hooks in the floor for the seat anchors have to secure both the seat and its occupant in the event of a crash, so they're actually not too flimsy at all. I think you could use those as attachment points with full confidence. The straps and their buckles, etc. will need to be up to the task themselves.
 
Great job on the retention strategy to keep everything from sliding forward... The bikes might rotate upwards on their forward axles (i.e. whichever wheel is strapped into the rack) and then come down again... Those hooks in the floor for the seat anchors have to secure both the seat and its occupant in the event of a crash, so they're actually not too flimsy... The straps and their buckles, etc. will need to be up to the task themselves.

Thank you for the feedback. Excellent points. 👍

Yes, the rear of the bikes could rotate upwards in a very hard stop, I did not think of that. Though I'd imagine it would take an extremely severe deceleration to cause that to happen. The bikes would lift up in the rear and then crash back down, but they wouldn't be able to go too far as they'd soon hit the ceiling of the van (and probably damage it). Though maybe strapping some thick pillows to the tops of the rear carriers of the bikes would help limit travel, protecting the ceiling and the bikes to an extent.

I will give thought to ideas to help prevent the upward rotation of the bikes. But as you mentioned, perhaps first I should do a test to see just how hard of a stop would cause this to happen. It's possible that with the weight of this van, plus not so great brakes, plus ABS (like you mentioned), the greatest degree of deceleration this van would ever be able to achieve on it's own may not be enough to get the bikes to lift up... or maybe just barely. If this is the case, then it's not an issue. Now if a crash occurs, the bikes will definitely lift up, but at that point I'd be dealing with much bigger problems.

The hooks in the floor for the rear seats, they're indeed incredibly beefy, I was not concerned about their integrity. But they just happen to be the only hook points inside this vehicle. A lot of other vans and SUVs I've seen have assorted accessory hooks / loops to attach things to, but not this van. This Odyssey was surely designed as a people hauler, not cargo hauler. Regardless, it's still been a great cargo hauler for my purposes over the past 15 years.

The straps, yes, I was thinking that they are the weakest link here, was maybe going to upgrade to beefier straps or even chain. But when carrying seven bikes, there's enough space and floor hooks to add a total of four of these straps onto the black pipe, evenly spaced across, so I'd think that with four of them, there's a good chance the pipe would not move in even the hardest decelerations this van could achieve (other than a crash). These straps have a rated working load of 500 pounds each, so that's 2,000 pounds of working load evenly spaced across the pipe.

In a crash though, yeah, the straps would likely fail. I don't think they'd snap, but the light-duty cam-buckles would likely allow slippage.

Side note, in the pics above, the black pipe is just merely resting on top of the L-shaped wheel-holders. I plan to of course add brackets to positively hold the pipe in place and also add some extra wood "stops" to guarantee that the pipe is not able to somehow slide down and out of position in an extreme jostling or deceleration. Have yet to work on this. The brackets will be added in such a way to allow the pipe to be easily slid in and out, for when making quick position adjustments to the wheel-holders and for general ease in assembly / disassembly.

Again, I feel this all could have been designed better, it was all sort of evolving as I went along so there's a lot of obvious "after-thoughts" with the design. As well, the limitations of working with a degree of scrap materials. But, I think it'll ultimately get the job done. Now if I could only find some cool bikes to buy! Well, as they say, success equals preparation plus opportunity. For now, just tryin' to prepare. :)
 
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I finally completed the latest version of my minivan bicycle carrying system and had a chance to test it out. Worked great! As shown in the attached photos, I was able to carry five bikes, upright, with plenty of room to spare. A total of seven bikes could be carried.

Not shown in the photos is all the cardboard, foam pads and blankets that had been stuffed between the bikes for the ride. Everything was stable for hundreds of miles, no issues, no damage to anything. At a few points I hit some fast corners and hard stops, nothing moved around, no issues.

In the last two photos, I rearranged the bikes and was able to stuff four bikes from dead center to far right. This shows and proves that this system will hold a total of seven similar bikes inside this typical 48" wide minivan. This is with pedals removed, handlebars removed and every other seat removed. I really don't think any more bikes could possibly fit, at least without either heavy disassembly or risking damage.

An added advantage of removing the handlebars and seats from the bikes is that you then have a 100% clear, unobstructed view out the rear window of the van. Or, you could lay a large piece of foam on top of the bikes to gain additional cargo volume above the bikes for lightweight items (extra parts like bike wheels, fenders, maybe even a bare frame or two, etc).

And if needed, I could attach my heavy-duty, shelf-style, rear tow-hitch-mounted bicycle carrier for an additional two-bike capacity... possibility of nine bikes total, without putting anything on the roof.

So the verdict is, a common minivan like this can hold a total of seven bikes inside, in a manner that will keep everything adequately supported and safe from damage. An attempt to stuff any more bikes into a space this size would surely risk some degree of damage, scrapes, scratches, etc, that's my opinion anyway, after having this recent experience.

Also, in this particular van, a total of four bikes could be transported inside with this system while keeping one rear passenger seat in place (for a total three-person capacity inside the van). But let's face it, do I (or any of us) have friends or family that have interest in going to classic bicycle shows? I know I'll always be travelin' solo on these types of runs! 😝

Final fun note, this trip was about 375 miles total (from Long Island, NY, throughout Massachusetts and back) and I got to meet up with two fellow northeast CABE members (about an hour apart from each other), was a lot of fun! I sincerely appreciate the help and hospitality of these two very friendly and knowledgeable fellows!

I had also met up with a third party, some more friendly folks that were not bike collectors but just happened to come across a few old bikes behind their barn and wanted to sell. Three pick-up stops in one trip. Worked out nicely. A successful day, but a long one.

And, oh yeah, there was a snow storm that morning, about 5" - 7"+ throughout the entire area, that made things extra exciting, but my "one-wheel-drive" 2010 Honda Odyssey with Michelin all-season tires (not snow tires) and less than 5" of ground clearance when loaded, did just fine. My driving skills had absolutely nothing to do with it. ;)

I'm very happy with my minivan bicycle carrying system, getting ready to head out from the northeast to the midwest and even CA, TX, etc this year, to hopefully find and purchase a few more of my bucket-list bikes.

😎👍

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The below two photos: I rearranged things to show that a total of seven bicycles can fit in this van, using this system. The bike to the left is positioned dead center, which means three more bikes will fit to the left of it. Again, when traveling, cardboard, foam and blankets are to be placed between the bikes to prevent damage.

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Great job. Still plenty of room for all your boxes full of parts. Now you can join the lucrative field of bicycle buying and selling at swap meets and make millions and buy that beachfront home you may have always wanted. LOL. Again, very nice job.
 
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