Van hire?

Thinking ahead im gonna have to hire a van for Crashfest in July! I normally use the car and trailer but il need somewhere to sleep on the nights and the back of the van will be fine!

so my question, When hiring vans do they usually have enough tie down points in them to ratchet strap the bike down securly?

Most leave the factory with enough tie down points but they arent usually in the optimum locations.

Also,when the van gets ply lined they dont aways cut around the tie down points where they should.

You will probably find some way of securing your bike if you take plenty of ratchet straps and ideally one of those front wheel chock devices. Machine mart does some nice cheap long straps and they come in orange

Just picked my bike up so here is one I did earlier.

I take it you don't fancy kipping in a tent then m8?

what i do is put the bike up against the head board then pop it up on a paddock stand . then one strap down and forward from around the peg part of the frame rand repeat on the other side.
i also kip in the van and a airbed is the best bit of money you will spend.

I'd give you my thoughts on this (as that's how I get to the track almost exclusively), but I'm guessing that your vans are substantially different than what you get over there.

That said, here's a cultural universal: The chock. I use Baxleys (and there are a lot of knock-offs); not only does it lock-in the front wheel handsomely, it also adds a great deal of stability to the bike in the van, trailer, truck bed, whatever. Allows for minimum of tie downs (only 2/bike, depending on the attach points you have available and assuming there's doors or a gate behind the bike), and with a minimum of tension on the tie-downs (don't have to totally lock down the suspension). If you don't use tyres warmer, more convenient to use than traditional stands trackside, if you bike doesn't have a sidestand. Only downside, is if you roll into the chock with hot race tyres, they tend to stick in the chock sometimes better than one might prefer.

For the bars, I use these (of which there also a number of knock-offs): http://www.cyclecynch.com/CCpages/CCproduct.html . Quick and easy on/off.