[Blitzen]

The theme of this thread is vehicle mounted solutions vs pull behinds. So tongue weight matters ...

Depending on whether your trailer looks like this:

or like this:

The latter is not a trailer.

 

[rennsportmotorrad]

Yes it is a class one hitch, But the tongue weight with a bike loaded is way below 200 lbs--But all I am towing are my Ducati 907ie or 900ss & my BMW airheads they are only slightly heavier then my Ducati's. Last year I took my 77 R100RS from Florida to PA. & back with no issues-

 

[Slowdive]

The latter is not a trailer.

I know but I was confused b/c this thread is about loading a bike on a pickup solo, then @O_2The_L posted a pic of his bike carrier. So when @rennsportmotorrad mentioned his "single rail motorcycle trailer" I just assumed he meant the same, but he didn't.

So for sure a traditional pull behind trailer isn't going to have any tongue weight issues.

 

[RockAZ]

Fair point

 

[O_2The_L]

My bad :-(

 

[Slowdive]

My bad :-(

Not at all, my confusion is not your fault

 

[Chuckracer]

You want me to ban him?

 

[Slowdive]

You want me to ban him?

Who you askin?

 

[Monster4Lee]

Nah. Pardon him.

 

[Chuckracer]

LOL!

Yeah, my little joke didn't work.OK, carry on! (get it?)

 

[bbradsby]

You want me to ban him?

Ban em all, let God sort em out

 

[bbradsby]

OK so i see the hitch-mount bike carrier above with an approx 800-lb minimum cruiser, and to me, what needs to be analyzed is how the hitch receiver bolts to the frame. With carrier, that would be a 900-lbs+ tongue weight.

Looks truly scary to me. How many bolts of what diameter and steel grade. and are they Chinese pig metal, are they rusted out? Every lil bump is working to shear off those bolts. Imagine the 1'-2' lever arm x 900-lbs x the acceleration momentum of that bike jacking up and down a few times with a pothole hit. Now imagine the I-5 jackhammer for five hours.

If you put a big fat streetbike on one of these, I hope you have a few mil in insurance for when that bike becomes a weapon in freeway traffic. Those hitch carriers are really suitable only for lightweight bikes, as far as I can tell.

 

[Chuckracer]

Yeah, that's scary as hell.

 

[Monster4Lee]

I hope you have a few mil in insurance for when that bike becomes a weapon in freeway traffic

For some reason I am reminded of the guy that lost his boat trailer, and it destroyed my curbside mailbox.
I shit you not.

 

[bbradsby]

For some reason I am reminded of the guy that lost his boat trailer, and it destroyed my curbside mailbox.
I shit you not.

pix or, as they say, it didnt happen ☺

 

[Neil66]

It would be cool if
a: It wasn't so expensive, and
b: wasn't permanent in the bed.

a) This is it exactly
b) they can be tied down

Price is ridiculous - from the same cuntry you can get an Erdé PM 310 trailer for less than a quarter of the price, so if you're after a trailer solution that's the one for me!!

 

[bbradsby]

Find a Kendon folding trailer. stores vertically and very compact.

 

[mountainrider]

 

[mountainrider]

Since picking up the FZ1 (above) for a friend in 2005'ish, I have switched from the 2 ramp method to this stacking ramp.

X-Ramp appears to be no longer producing this unit which I bought back in 2007'ish but there may be others that have a similar storage footprint and overall design

Best features of this 8 foot long ramp are a small foot print when stored and its stability when deployed. The 42 inch (from memory) wide span between the scissor-joint-sides make solo unloading a dawdle.

The fact that it cant slide around and bang into shit (when I have the van in sport mode) is a bonus of it being solidly anchored at the pivot point. BTW, this ramp was originally designed for pickups

 

[StraDuc]

I have safely hauled my bikes many thousands of miles over the last 10 years with a hitch carrier plugged into the Class III receiver on my Ford F150. I was living in Chicago until recently (and IL is the second flattest state in the union) so getting to decent moto roads was at least a 3 hour haul on the interstate and I hate wearing out the center of a tire. I chose this method because it's easy to store when not in use, doesn't require a license plate and I can safely do the load and unload by myself because I added the wheel chock to hold the bike while I strap it down. Would I put that giant heavyweight cruiser pictured above on it? Nope. That is indeed scary and stupid. But my heaviest bike is maybe 420 pounds so I feel that the carrier is safe for my needs and it is certainly more convenient than a trailer for me. My trips are usually on interstates so relatively smooth and I adjust my speed to the quality of the road. I have hauled a bike to NC, WV, AL, AR and many many times to southwestern WI to enjoy riding the roads. There are many ways to attack most jobs and this one has worked well for me.

Edit: Note the straps holding the wheels to the carrier rail. They are VERY much necessary to keep from bouncing the wheel out of the rail when the suspension compresses and rebounds. I fortunately learned that lesson at slow speed with my BSA B-44 Victor on board. It landed on the rail on it's skid plate without damage to the bike.