Softride Bike Rack

For bikes, I added a Softride trailer hitch bike rack (with a trailer hitch extension to get it out past the rear-mounted spare tire). The Softride will scissor rearward (not to the side like other racks) out of the way when I want to open the rear van doors:

Softride sells the appropriate trailer hitch extension , but if you shop around you can find a generic trailer hitch extension for much cheaper!

I'm pretty happy with the Softride. It seems to be a simpler design than the trailer hitch racks that fold out on the vertical axis, and is much cheaper. Scissoring the bikes away from the van rear doors takes only a few seconds. Pushing the bikes back up (forward) can take a bit of strength, though, when lots of bikes are on the rack.

Perhaps because of quality control issues, our Softride wasn't perfect. The rack was a bit stiff to move until I used my Dremel tool to grind down the lock pin a tiny bit so it wouldn't drag. (For some reason, the lock pin was a tiny bit too long.)