Bike rack loading ramp ideas anyone?

We have electric bikes which are a little on the heavy side and awkward for loading onto a low mounted Fiamma bike rack, even with the batteries removed. Thule do a neat loading ramp so you can just roll the bike up onto the rails, but nothing similar on Fiamma. Has anyone devised a simple solution to make it easier to load heavy bikes? Would appreciate some creative thinking!

Have you considered the electric bike version of this?

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rogerblack wrote:Have you considered the electric bike version of this?

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Hmmm! It would certainly reduce the weight in my wallet.

Nice idea but as everything else is good, for now I'll continue seeing it as a weight training opportunity each time I have to load/unload with my trusty assistant.

Send for the Thule ramp from Amazon,see if it can be adapted for your  use if not return undamaged of cause

FreelanderUK wrote:Send for the Thule ramp from Amazon,see if it can be adapted for your  use if not return undamaged of cause

Now there's a £41 idea. 

I don't know how low your Fiamma rack is - I've never noticed one on a 2019 van.

If you have a towbar fitted, you might consider a Thule (or similar) towball mounted rack.

The bike rails are virtually the same height as the towball, so very low, and having taken our electric bikes to the Med and back without a single hiccup, I can recommend it.

Hope this is useful.

Better solution IMHO, is rent bikes on arrival, if terrain is suitable for us oldies, there'll be wall to wall bikes to rent, if not, there will be few if any!!

Noticed that in Holland rental electric bikes are very little more expensive than human powered ones, you may be thinking Holland is flat, and it mostly is, but it still managed considerable headwinds!

BTW, my Fiamma bike rack which was fitted to my new (to me) Executive currently for sale in the for sale section

if you put "lifting an e-bike" into the search facility, you will find a post that I wrote with illustrations.  You will also find a number of alternatives in a lengthy series of posts from other members.
Keith

Hi All,
Thanks for the suggestions.
Here's an update on our thinking.
Our bike rack folds down to a bit above the number plate level, so it's not up really high.
I can single-handly (well with two hands!) load the bikes and with assistance, it's easier.
We are looking for a low cost way of perhaps easing the loading effort by using a ramp.
We don't have a tow bar fitted and have ruled this out on the basis of cost - tow bar and new rack and most important of all, the fact that it would take a chunk out of our precious payload.
At this stage changing the rack seems an unnecessary expense.

FreelanderUk's idea has merit and we may try that - we have also had an idea how to make something that may do the trick which I'll look into further.
Will report back if anything successful to show and share!