Elite II rear receiver option

[domer1970]

Specs say 1.25" but elsewhere on the forum I've read 2.0"  Which is it?

If 1.25", will that factor be strong enough to carry a bike rack with a loaded weight of 100+ pounds?

Regards,

David Savageau

Hull #591

[Ray and Susan Huff]

Originally there was a 2" receiver option, but Oliver reduced it to 1.25" as a result of litigation.  Not the best option, since most robust bike racks have 2" receivers.  Some people have or have had a 2" bumper mount receiver fabricated, but it is a bit complicated calculating the change in tongue weight, etc.  Others have utilized a riser mounted rack on the trailer's A-frame.  A search should bring up posts about both of these.  I will share the result of our method - hopefully it will work.  We don't want to carry the bikes in the back of the pickup, but have an alternative plan to install mounts on a tonneau cover.

Oliver did have the 1.25" receiver rated at a 100# load limit, but it was recently upgraded to 150#.  The latter is an improvement, but still not sufficient for those wishing to transport e-bikes. 

Our bike rack is 2"; the rack alone weighs 50# and two mt. bikes add an additional 70#.  Not wanting to ditch our bike rack that we love (1upUSA), we are hoping there is room to mount the rack to the pickup receiver with this dual hitch.  Won't know if this will work until we have our Oliver hitched up; based on measurements given us by Oliver, I'm almost certain there will be enough clearance between the back of the rack and the Oliver's tongue jack.  We are not getting the tongue accessory basket.

Hope this helps.  

[Overland]

8 minutes ago, Susan Huff said:

 

Originally there was a 2" receiver option, but Oliver reduced it to 1.25" as a result of litigation.

Is that true?

[topgun2]

From what little I know on that subject - it is NOT true.  I was told that the reason for reducing the size was concern that users of the 2 inch receiver were more likely to overload the assembly's posted limits.  Certainly this overloading, not reading of posted limits COULD have led to litigation, but, to my knowledge, it never did.  I believe that Oliver was simply being conservative and cautious by reducing the size of the receiver.

Bill

p.s.  perhaps the words "possible litigation" was what meant?

Edited October 6, 2020 by topgun2
p.s. added

[Ray and Susan Huff]

1 hour ago, topgun2 said:

From what little I know on that subject - it is NOT true.  I was told that the reason for reducing the size was concern that users of the 2 inch receiver were more likely to overload the assembly's posted limits.  Certainly this overloading, not reading of posted limits COULD have led to litigation, but, to my knowledge, it never did.  I believe that Oliver was simply being conservative and cautious by reducing the size of the receiver.

Bill

p.s.  perhaps the words "possible litigation" was what meant?

Yes . . . . . "possible" is most likely, but it was not included in the explanation I was given.  With a 2" receiver, it would be easy to overload the hitch; not so easy with the smaller receiver.  It's sad, but true, that a few people who don't act responsibly can ruin things for others.

Sorry if my comment was skewed.

[Dean]

If you price square aluminum tubing and calculate the materials cost you will discover the smaller ID was a lot cheaper to produce.  

Edited October 6, 2020 by Dean

[Jairon]

I can easily overload my entire trailer, use a dangerous tow vehicle, fail to configure my brake controller, fail to inspect and maintain wheels, etc... Artificially limiting what we can use our receiver for is pretty silly given the already high level of potential danger involved in towing. Oliver should simply put a load sticker on it like everything else and give responsible owners a 2 inch receiver.

[topgun2]

Of course both Dean's and Jairon's posts above are basically correct. 

However, with regards to Dean's - given the price that Oliver is charging for the camper plus the price they are charging for the hitch I do not see a bunch of evidence that Oliver is doing anything to "cheapen" the cost of materials simply for the sake of increased profits.  Of course one can argue that there should have been a reduction in the price of the hitch when the change was made from 2" to the smaller size.  But, I would guess that given the number of these hitches sold and the man power and engineering costs associated with producing them versus the materials costs it really didn't matter that much one way or the other.

With regards to Jairon's  - of course you are right about giving "responsible owners" a choice.  Its the irresponsible ones that cause the rest of us so much trouble.  In addition, these receivers were meant to carry light loads and were designed basically before the e-bike thing was getting popular.  Exactly why does one need a the capacity of a two inch receiver when a 1.5 inch will do the job of carrying a bike?  And, by going to the 1.5 inch those irresponsible people will not have the "easy" choice of trying to tow something that is well outside the design limits of the entire assembly let alone issues involved with weight distribution of the entire trailer.  Warning labels/stickers really don't mean much one way or the other in my opinion.

Finally, I have never seen or heard of a situation where Oliver has "cheapened" a construction method and/or used inferior materials simply for the sake of profit.  Yes, there have been changes to the trailers over the years that have resulted in lower construction and/or materials costs.  But, these changes have also (on average) brought benefits to the owners of these trailers either through better utility or safety or lower price increases than would have happened otherwise.

Bill

Edited October 6, 2020 by topgun2

[Overland]

9 minutes ago, topgun2 said:

Exactly why does one need a the capacity of a two inch receiver when a one inch will do the job of carrying a bike? 

Because most of the better bike racks come with 2" receivers, and customers who buy better trailers tend to also buy better bike racks.  

[katanapilot]

1 hour ago, topgun2 said:

 

But, these changes have also (on average) brought benefits to the owners of these trailers either through better utility of safety or lower price increases than would have happened otherwise.

Bill

Not sure how the switch from U.S. made Trojan batteries to the basically no-name Chinese produced batteries jive with your statement.

I agree that some of the changes have been positive, but this is one that (in my view) is not. 

[mossemi]

2 hours ago, Dean said:

If you price square aluminum tubing and calculate the materials cost you will discover the smaller ID was a lot cheaper to produce.  

I would guess from the above statement that you have never seen the 1.25" attachment point of the rear receiver Oliver is installing.  I don’t know anything about the cost of 2” aluminum tubing, but I would guess that there is about 3 times as much aluminum in Oliver’s version of the 1.25" receiver than there is in a 2" tube of the same length with a .25" wall thickness.

Mossey

[topgun2]

Quote

4 hours ago, Overland said:

Because most of the better bike racks come with 2" receivers, and customers who buy better trailers tend to also buy better bike racks.

 

And,  I would add that having a 2 inch receiver makes it easier to take that 2 inch bike rack off the Ollie and put it directly on the receiver of the tow vehicle.

But, to suggest the change "was a lot cheaper to produce" due the 1.5 inch hitches versus the 2 inch or to "Artificially limit what we use our for" seems a bit unfair to me.

And, from what I know presently, I agree with katanapilot regarding the choice of batteries but I did say "on average" basically due to that very issue.

Bottom line is that if I were to get the bike rack option, I too would prefer the 2 inch versus the 1.5 inch.  I simply don't believe that either of the two statements I refer to is entirely fair to Oliver.

Bill

Edited October 6, 2020 by topgun2

[Ray and Susan Huff]

6 hours ago, Overland said:

Because most of the better bike racks come with 2" receivers, and customers who buy better trailers tend to also buy better bike racks.  

As well as better bikes  . . . . . . and better bikes need better racks 😁

[BackofBeyond]

On the former two inch Oliver rear bike rack "platform"  -  that was basically two 2" receivers  with an aluminum 2" square tubing  platform attached.   I was told why they discontinued it - and previous comments seem to be incorrect. I have one- that I installed, and it is a great piece of equipment - certainly capable of holding a goodly amount of weight.  Others have  have similar devices fabricated and installed on the Oliver -  they have been featured on the forum - a search will get you there. 

Where I a new purchaser - I would forego the  Oliver rack - and have one built (probably do it myself) and installed attached similar to the original Oliver design. 

 

Keep it under 200 lbs. and you'll be fine -  no that is not an engineering spec - it is from my real world experience. Remember Atlas - and the leverage "thingy" . One can go overboard....

It has not been my experience that Oliver makes decisions on product with purely a cost mindset - balancing utility, cost and experience is a tough process, People can be very unreasonable......

[Overland]

29 minutes ago, BackofBeyond said:

I was told why they discontinued it - and previous comments seem to be incorrect.

So, what's the answer?

[BackofBeyond]

I do not wish to share - lets just say a previous customer had an issue. 

 

[John E Davies]

https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/3263-how-to-move-the-factory-cargo-tray-to-a-rear-rack/

John Davies
Spokane WA

[ljgreathouse]

On 10/5/2020 at 11:35 PM, Susan Huff said:

Originally there was a 2" receiver option, but Oliver reduced it to 1.25" as a result of litigation.  Not the best option, since most robust bike racks have 2" receivers.  Some people have or have had a 2" bumper mount receiver fabricated, but it is a bit complicated calculating the change in tongue weight, etc.  Others have utilized a riser mounted rack on the trailer's A-frame.  A search should bring up posts about both of these.  I will share the result of our method - hopefully it will work.  We don't want to carry the bikes in the back of the pickup, but have an alternative plan to install mounts on a tonneau cover.

Oliver did have the 1.25" receiver rated at a 100# load limit, but it was recently upgraded to 150#.  The latter is an improvement, but still not sufficient for those wishing to transport e-bikes. 

Our bike rack is 2"; the rack alone weighs 50# and two mt. bikes add an additional 70#.  Not wanting to ditch our bike rack that we love (1upUSA), we are hoping there is room to mount the rack to the pickup receiver with this dual hitch.  Won't know if this will work until we have our Oliver hitched up; based on measurements given us by Oliver, I'm almost certain there will be enough clearance between the back of the rack and the Oliver's tongue jack.  We are not getting the tongue accessory basket.

Hope this helps.  

I too am a 1up USA fan and plan on trying the dual hitch.  Has anyone tried it?

 

[Ray and Susan Huff]

3 hours ago, ljgreathouse said:

I too am a 1up USA fan and plan on trying the dual hitch.  Has anyone tried it?

 

Following.

Are you thinking of using the receiver/ball hitch adapter on the pickup?  

Maybe you've thought of this, but we did not order the aluminum storage box because it might prohibit mounting the bike rack between the trailer and the pickup.  I don't recall exactly but I think the bike rack extends 27" from the receiver to the rearmost tray.  The measurement Oliver gave me from the hitch jack to the ball is 36".  It looks like the adapter adds about an additional 3" (distance from receiver to ball mount on the adapter.  So, possibly 39" of clearance.  Not sure if turning radius is a factor, but my husband seems to think it will work.

I'm not sure if there will be room for the 1up rack to tilt down while the bikes are loaded if you need to lower the tailgate to access cargo.  Or, if the tailgate can be opened when the rack is in the folded position.  I can't remember how the rack is situated in relation to the pickup bed (we mostly used it on the back of our camper van) and don't have access to the rack at the moment.

My head spins just thinking about all the possible impediments 🚫

[taylor.coyote]

I chimed in on the topic of transporting bikes on the rear of the trailer last year. My Background/expertise comes from being an executive at Yakima Products for 20 years. I'm impress with some of these creative and eloquent solutions. I simply want to voice to proceed with an abundance of caution when engineering bike soultions that attached to the rear bumper of any trailer. As I stated before, the forces at the rear of a trailer are magnitudes greater than at the hitch of your tow vehicle.  The axle of your trailer is a giant fulcrum/pivot point and the rear of your trailer is the launching point.  There are very few products designed to withstand the forces generated at the rear of a trailer.  At this time Yakima only makes two hitch mounts that are approved for use on the rear of a trailer.

LongHaul - https://yakima.com/products/longhaul?_ga=2.263397708.1569403010.1602517930-2113444950.1601489236
RoadTrip - https://yakima.com/products/roadtrip?_ga=2.263397708.1569403010.1602517930-2113444950.1601489236

This means that none of the other 50+ bike racks made by Yakima are approved or designed to be used on the rear of a trailer. I would go as far to say that  most of the bike systems being used on the rear of trailers are not rated for the dynamic forces being exerted on them. The majority of these bike systems are being miss-used and are at risk of a catastrophic failure.

I have never spoken to the folks at Oliver but I trust you should not exceed the recommended load limits specified by the factory. 

In my early years at Yakima, I always felt that engineers were way too conservative resulting in not being able to make product to carry loads in ways that seemed fine to me. This was based on my own extensive experience using our products. It was the classic conflict between the marketing team and the engineering team. Fast forward many years and one of my roles was being responsible for all the warranty and customer service activities. At the time we fielded in the range of 500,000 calls per year.  Every Monday morning after our customers spent the weekend transporting their toys, the phone lines were jammed with every situation you could imagine about gear that had fallen off and hit the road or got scrapped off from a low overhang or what ever.  98% + of the gear that found its-self on the road was due to consumer installation errors, miss use and overloading. 

My point: your personal experience and general judgment of what will work should not exceed the engineering guidelines. You can get away with exceeding these guidelines for a long time until that one compression, bump or off road water bar will get you. Now that catastrophic failure is happing to you. All you need to do is spend one day listening to the Monday morning calls coming into Yakima. The call starts with, "I was just driving down the road and my rack and bikes came off my car and were run over by the car behind me".  After, learning more about what actually happened,  98% of the time, the products were WAY OVERLOADED or MISS-USED in some way.   

The final story I will leave you with is when I was driving north on California highway 101 earlier this summer. The road is rough and curves through the giant redwoods. I came around a sharp curve and came upon four bikes that were attached to an entire fifth-wheel ladder laying in the middle of the road.  About a mile ahead was the first safe place to pull off the road. At this point was an enormous fifth-wheel trailer with holes ripped out of the back of the trailer where the ladder was once attached.  You see bikes on fifth-wheel trailer ladders all the time. It's one thing for a 250 pound person to climb that ladder when the trailer is not moving. Its another to load that ladder with a 100 pounds of bikes that are getting tossed and flung around mile after mile after mile.  

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by taylor.coyote

[mossemi]

Taylor.coyote,

Thank you for posting this information again.  Sharing your professional experience should clear up any misinformation that I may have posted.

Mea Culpa,

Mossey

 

[VBistro]

On 10/6/2020 at 5:02 PM, Susan Huff said:

As well as better bikes  . . . . . . and better bikes need better racks 😁

Agreed.  But then, I wouldn't put my babies on a rack on the back of the Ollie anyway.  They will live in or on the tow vehicle.  

MaryBeth

Specialized Diverge Pro
Specialized SWorks Ruby
Liv Pique Advanced 2

🙂

[Ray and Susan Huff]

13 minutes ago, VBistro said:

Agreed.  But then, I wouldn't put my babies on a rack on the back of the Ollie anyway.  They will live in or on the tow vehicle.  

MaryBeth

Specialized Diverge Pro
Specialized SWorks Ruby
Liv Pique Advanced 2

🙂

I agree. . . . . ours will hopefully ride behind the pickup.

[Pat Maundrell]

On 10/14/2020 at 3:28 AM, taylor.coyote said:

I chimed in on the topic of transporting bikes on the rear of the trailer last year. My Background/expertise comes from being an executive at Yakima Products for 20 years. I'm impress with some of these creative and eloquent solutions. I simply want to voice to proceed with an abundance of caution when engineering bike soultions that attached to the rear bumper of any trailer. As I stated before, the forces at the rear of a trailer are magnitudes greater than at the hitch of your tow vehicle.  The axle of your trailer is a giant fulcrum/pivot point and the rear of your trailer is the launching point.  There are very few products designed to withstand the forces generated at the rear of a trailer.  At this time Yakima only makes two hitch mounts that are approved for use on the rear of a trailer.

LongHaul - https://yakima.com/products/longhaul?_ga=2.263397708.1569403010.1602517930-2113444950.1601489236
RoadTrip - https://yakima.com/products/roadtrip?_ga=2.263397708.1569403010.1602517930-2113444950.1601489236

This means that none of the other 50+ bike racks made by Yakima are approved or designed to be used on the rear of a trailer. I would go as far to say that  most of the bike systems being used on the rear of trailers are not rated for the dynamic forces being exerted on them. The majority of these bike systems are being miss-used and are at risk of a catastrophic failure.

I have never spoken to the folks at Oliver but I trust you should not exceed the recommended load limits specified by the factory. 

In my early years at Yakima, I always felt that engineers were way too conservative resulting in not being able to make product to carry loads in ways that seemed fine to me. This was based on my own extensive experience using our products. It was the classic conflict between the marketing team and the engineering team. Fast forward many years and one of my roles was being responsible for all the warranty and customer service activities. At the time we fielded in the range of 500,000 calls per year.  Every Monday morning after our customers spent the weekend transporting their toys, the phone lines were jammed with every situation you could imagine about gear that had fallen off and hit the road or got scrapped off from a low overhang or what ever.  98% + of the gear that found its-self on the road was due to consumer installation errors, miss use and overloading. 

My point: your personal experience and general judgment of what will work should not exceed the engineering guidelines. You can get away with exceeding these guidelines for a long time until that one compression, bump or off road water bar will get you. Now that catastrophic failure is happing to you. All you need to do is spend one day listening to the Monday morning calls coming into Yakima. The call starts with, "I was just driving down the road and my rack and bikes came off my car and were run over by the car behind me".  After, learning more about what actually happened,  98% of the time, the products were WAY OVERLOADED or MISS-USED in some way.   

The final story I will leave you with is when I was driving north on California highway 101 earlier this summer. The road is rough and curves through the giant redwoods. I came around a sharp curve and came upon four bikes that were attached to an entire fifth-wheel ladder laying in the middle of the road.  About a mile ahead was the first safe place to pull off the road. At this point was an enormous fifth-wheel trailer with holes ripped out of the back of the trailer where the ladder was once attached.  You see bikes on fifth-wheel trailer ladders all the time. It's one thing for a 250 pound person to climb that ladder when the trailer is not moving. Its another to load that ladder with a 100 pounds of bikes that are getting tossed and flung around mile after mile after mile.  

 

You couldn't have said it better! However, most people aren't aware of these forces! invo

[Trainman]

I ordered the trailer with the receiver option, personal it was a lot of money for something we don't use. We carry our E-Bikes in the bed of the truck, so the receiver sets in my shop over in the corner. I may someday change out the 1 1/4" receiver for a 2" receiver, actual pretty easily done. I might someday want an aluminum carrier basket, but for now we just don't need the extra carrying space.

trainman