Originally Posted by
unterhausen
Do I have to ask a clueless question to get people to post? Don't answer that. People seem to want to talk about bike racks, so here is a current thread to do that. How many people have run into their garage with a bike on top of their car, for example.
I really want a 2" receiver hitch for my wife's Camry hybrid. There is one company that makes a 2" hitch for my Prius, but her car is better to take road trips with. And she's the one with the heavy ebike and who likes to travel to rail trails.
Apparently the same company that makes 2" receivers for the Prius will do custom hitches for other cars, but I'm afraid to ask what the price is given that the Prius hitch is almost $500. My other thought is getting a 1 1/4" hitch and having a local welder put a 2" receiver on it. There is no way I'm putting that ebike on a trunk mounted rack.
How much does her bike weigh? A lot comes into play regarding capacity of a receiver, and simply making a 2 inch receiver doesn't magically allow the car to have increased capacity. There are reasons 1 1/4 inch receivers are the only ones available for some cars. And sorry, using an adapter doesn't make the receiver stronger either, in fact, adding an adapter enabling a 1 1/4 inch receiver accept 2 inch type bike racks will make it weaker since it will extend the receiver, acting as a lever, increasing stress, in the form of torque, on the receiver, and mounting points. That stress will be over what the smaller receiver is designed for. Each bump in the road adds more and more stress to the receiver and mounting points.
I have a 1 1/4 inch receiver on my Nissan Cube, and a Thule rack. Just for one example, the Thule T2 Pro XTR rack has a single bike allowable weight rating of 60 lbs. with a 1 1/4 inch receiver, and a 100 lbs. total weight permissible for two bikes on the rack.
Get a 1 1/4 inch receiver, a good one, designed to fit your Camry, then buy a good, high quality rack. Don't skimp on the rack. Get a tray type rack.