3rd March 2020 to 14th March 2020
Bike rack
The Motorhome was fitted with the fixing frame for a bike rack, but not the rack itself. The fixing frame is a Fiamma so I spoke to Don Amott about a suitable rack that fitted. They advised the Fiamma Pro C or Pro C-N. The C variant comes with the fixing frame and the N variant without. Ideally I would have purchased the N variant as it’s cheaper and I already had the fixing frame. However, after a little reasearch I found a company call Outdoorbits whose prices were only a fraction of those from Don Amott’s. Unfortunately they didn’t stock the N variant, but it was still much cheaper to buy the C variant from them, rather than the N variant fron Don Amott.
Installation was fairly straight forward. Other than assembly and tightening nuts all I needed to do was reduce the vertical frame slightly with a hack saw. Took about an hour in total.
Spare Wheel Carrier
I find it very odd that a vehicle with a price tag of greater than £50k, doesn’t come with a spare wheel. Nor does it come with a jack capable of lifting the motorhome even if you had a spare. I realise that all weight is payload, but it puts you entirely at the mercy of the breakdown services in whatever country you get the misfortunate of a puncture.
I have been a member of the AA for over 20 years and I know that they will be with me within a hour if I call them, but that doesn’t mean I will be on my way within 2 hours. The tyres on the motorhome are rated for over 4 tonnes and run at 80 psi. You can’t generally walk into a QuickFit and buy one. So a puncture on a Bank Holiday will probably disable the motorhome for a couple of days whilst a tyre can be found.
The comprimise for me is a wheel carrier with a spare tyre (not a full wheel and tyre). Ok it will still need the breakdown services to jack the motorhome up and replace the punctured tyre with the new one, but that is all I should need to get me on my way again.
The spare carrier I also bought from OutdoorBits and fitted it myself to mounting points already manufactured into the AlKo chassis. Another hour or so – and only half the wieght of a full wheel and tyre.