[yolomtb]

Hey, I have seen a few mentions of bikes on this forum, mostly about racks, or front wheels taken off.

We are looking for a bike rig. I think the Sienna is it. We would like to remove front and rear seats. Would we be able to roll 2 size medium 29er mountain bikes INSIDE the vehicle? find if they are at an angle. I know we can take off front wheel and make a mount, which we may do from time to time as well. Also, if the 2 middle seats are there, is it possible to roll a bike to where the front wheel is between the seats?

We may be going with 4 ebikes (3 on 1UP hitch rack) and 1 inside, plus 4 passengers.

Will it work, or am I crazy? Pictures would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

 

[sixto]

The third row folds flat into the floor so that’s not an issue. The middle row comes as two buckets (7-seater) or a three section bench (8-seater) with each section folding and tumbling forward separately.

We can get two 27s in our 8-seater with two, possibly only one end, of the middle row sections tumbled.

I don’t know how much room there is between middle row buckets. You might have to fold one or both middle row buckets to clear the handlebars with a front wheel between the buckets. Putting a back wheel between buckets might be easier but pedals get in the way when you push a bike backwards.

The hatch opening isn’t as tall as it looks. Measure vs the height of your bikes before you commit.

A Sprinter class van might work better for all those bikes.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

 

[yolomtb]

The third row folds flat into the floor so that’s not an issue. The middle row comes as two buckets (7-seater) or a three section bench (8-seater) with each section folding and tumbling forward separately.

We can get two 27s in our 8-seater with two, possibly only one end, of the middle row sections tumbled.

I don’t know how much room there is between middle row buckets. You might have to fold one or both middle row buckets to clear the handlebars with a front wheel between the buckets. Putting a back wheel between buckets might be easier but pedals get in the way when you push a bike backwards.

The hatch opening isn’t as tall as it looks. Measure vs the height of your bikes before you commit.

A Sprinter class van might work better for all those bikes.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

Appreciate the tip. I wish we had Sprinter $$. Looking to spend under 10K for AWD so we are pretty limited. Only other thing in the balpark is an AstroVan, but would prefer a yota.

 

[yolomtb]

Appreciate the tip. I wish we had Sprinter $$. Looking to spend under 10K for AWD so we are pretty limited. Only other thing in the balpark is an AstroVan, but would prefer a yota.

is there more vertical space going thru the side doors (with middle seats removed)?

 

[yolomtb]

Bike from ground to handlebars is 41 inches. Would think we could turn it sideways to clear the tailgate, then we should be good? Would mostly just use hitch rack with 3 eBikes, but would be nice to know we could occasionally throw a few bikes inside for security.

 

[sixto]

You’ll get the bikes in with a little maneuvering.

I don’t think the side door openings are taller because of the slider track. I’m away from home so I can’t measure. The side door openings aren’t as wide as they look.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

 

[BillG]

I've gotten 2 youth mountain bikes plus a smaller "Huffy" style kids bike in the van with the middle seats still in place, but it was local roads and quite a bit sketchy if we were to get in an accident. It's WAY easier to get a hitch installed and use a hitch-mount 4-bike carrier on the back. If I were going distances, I'd do that or maybe a roof mount. They make locking bike mounts and you could easily rig something up to secure them further.

 

[sixto]

The bumper hangs low. The hitch we have scrapes every opportunity it can. We leave it at home. If we didn’t have towing alternatives, I’d look into punching a receiver through the bumper.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

 

[yolomtb]

The bumper hangs low. The hitch we have scrapes every opportunity it can. We leave it at home. If we didn’t have towing alternatives, I’d look into punching a receiver through the bumper.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

The hitch itself drags, or the rack? We would be either doing a 3 inch lift or at minimum putting on the max sized tires we could which seems like it would help. As for the previous comment, we would mostly be using the hitch with our 1UP rack, but like the idea of being able to stuff the bikes in the car for security during specific times.

 

[sixto]

The receiver hits the ground. We don’t have a rack but I imagine the rack would hit the ground too. I don’t like carrying bikes outside. On the rare occasion we take more bikes than we can carry in the Sienna, we have an Econoline.

Raising the van should work nicely. We have a set of Firestone load assist bellows that fit in the rear coils that can provide more height. The instructions say not for AWD Siennas. I don’t know why.

Sixto
‘04 LE FWD 201K miles

 

[GlibO]

Thanks for the advice. Also, I was thinking how to do it right

 

[bencahill]

I can easily fit two 26" bikes with only the third row folded in my 2009. I doubt you would have a problem fitting 29s, especially with the second row tumbled or removed. Note that the 3rd gen (2011-2020) has permanently-attached sliders on the floor for the second row, so the floor is not flat. I don't think that will be a problem.

I have to tilt the handlebars and bike a tad on my 26" bikes to fit them through the hatch, so I think you would have to tilt the 29"s a decent amount to fit them through the hatch, but I think it will be very doable.

 

[KVR]

Hey, I have seen a few mentions of bikes on this forum, mostly about racks, or front wheels taken off.

We are looking for a bike rig. I think the Sienna is it. We would like to remove front and rear seats. Would we be able to roll 2 size medium 29er mountain bikes INSIDE the vehicle? find if they are at an angle. I know we can take off front wheel and make a mount, which we may do from time to time as well. Also, if the 2 middle seats are there, is it possible to roll a bike to where the front wheel is between the seats?

We may be going with 4 ebikes (3 on 1UP hitch rack) and 1 inside, plus 4 passengers.

Will it work, or am I crazy? Pictures would be appreciated. Thanks!!!

29”, 26” and 16” all fit together. Even more if you remove front tires. This is the only picture I could find of my van with a 29” and a 26”, large second row seat just slid forward, not removed.

 

[yolomtb]

Quick update. Bought a 2012 Limited AWD (Yay). Only tried with one bike, but I can see there is a good amt of space! This is a size Medium 2019 Stumpjumper 29er. For anything bigger I can always just do the basic fork mount setup.

 

[yolomtb]

Also, there are 3 more vertical inches going thru the side door than the rear hatch.

 

[dr_innovaiton]

Op has a solution and I'm late to the party.. but I thought I'd sill post in case others find this thread. For my Gen 4 2021, I built a bike wheel rack from some old pallet wood so we could put bikes in without taking off the wheels or adjusting anything other than moving seats forward and without the bikes lying down. We put in two 26 bikes inside frequently. Would not have had a problem with 29s (if seats went down far enough), and it would be trivial without the front wheel. Going in from the back, we had to tilt them to get under the door frame (see the last photo). A little tricky to get them, but it was easier than going through the side where we worried about hitting the seats. To keep it stable while driving, bikes have a strap over the center going into seat latches for the 3rd row. We had bungee cords to the handlebars, which DW though might hit the roof inside but did not really need them. At first, I had on one side so we could use the other seat but it was just two of us so we moved the bikes in the middle so we could have both one side for easy access to luggage and the other side to the cooler. I've also used it for my fat tire e-bike (26x4.5 tires, 19" seat post) but with different tire board spacing (sorry no pics). The seat was just clearing the door as I went in sideways. Without the wheels, a rack would just fit behind the second row with enough leg room for medium adults. With fork mounts on the board, it would even more stable and could probably get 4 bikes in.