Transporting your OHVs

In a previous post [Toy Haulers or Sport Utility Recreational Vehicles (SURVs)] we talked briefly about toy haulers, a great way to transport your OHVs. But that is by far not the only option. And it is certainly not the least expensive! When we first started out dirt biking, we mounted simple "basket" carriers on the front and rear bumpers of our Class C motorhome and lifted the dirt bikes into the carriers. Not the easiest or the most convenient option, but one of the least expensive and the load carrying capacity is limited. Many riders haul their toys in the back of a pickup truck.  My daughter used her little S-10 pickup to haul her bike to her races.  With the addition of  a truck tent and it little camping gear it was also her home at the track.  One of my dirt bike mentors hauled his bikes in a full size pickup and pulled a 23' travel trailer behind it.  Not a bad option and it fit his family of 4 perfectly.  There are also racks that slide into a Class III hitch receiver that can carry one or two dirt bikes or one ATV behind any vehicle with a suitable hitch.   It is definitely easier to load a bike onto one of these racks (you can improvise a ramp if it doesn't have one) than lifting them into the basket carriers.  Not having a trailer makes negotiating service stations and supermarket parking lots easier, but limits the size, weight,  and number of vehicles and amount of tools, supplies, and gear you can carry. As the number of riders in our family outgrew two dirt bikes, we graduated to pulling a trailer. Our first "motorcycle" trailer had begun life as a Nimrod tent trailer.  Everything that once made it a tent trailer was long gone.   All that remained was the floor, running gear, and the 18" steel walls so it resembled a common utility trailer. The rear wall had been cut out and replaced with a hinged expanded metal ramp for loading the bikes. Eventually our family of 8 outgrew even that and by then we wanted an enclosed trailer so we'd have some place to get the bikes in out of the weather when they needed repairs during an outing and a place to store tools, spare parts, and riding gear that had grown to exceed the capacity of the footlocker in the front of the little trailer. For a while we towed an old construction office trailer that hauled 8 bikes and all our tools, spare parts, and gear, and served as a motorcycle shed at home. It did the job and the only real problem with this solution was it was BIG and HEAVY and UGLY. . It was like towing around a huge anchor all the time! It only cost a few hundred bucks, so it wasn't a big investment, but it sure affected the performance and mileage of our motorhome! I was able to lighten the load a little by removing two or three layers of asphalt tile from the floor and replacing it with vinyl sheeting.  Somewhere along the line we acquired a little 4-rail trailer that would haul 4 dirt bikes. It would suffice for short outings when only part of the family was able to go and for ferrying a few bikes back and forth to the shop. With a family of 8 we soon needed more sleeping space too. Eventually we bought our first Smuggler. Even though it was only a 16 footer, it served our family well for many years, hauling bikes and tools and spare parts and gear and providing additional sleeping capacity once we got to camp. It was outfitted much like a low-end truck camper, with a sink, icebox, and stove, and sofa beds, but no sanitary facilities and no furnace. For several years we heated it with a Coleman catalytic tent heater. If you choose to use a catalytic heater, make sure you have adequate ventilation. They don't give off toxic fumes, but they do consume oxygen and you can suffocate if you share an enclosed space with one for too long. Eventually I picked up a furnace out of a truck camper in a junk yard and installed it.  Because it came with a stove/oven, it already a propane tank. The furnace was a lot more convenient and efficient to use than the catalytic heater and made the trailer very comfortable on cold nights. Sometimes we even fired it up on cold days so we'd have a warm place to change in and out of our riding gear. I don't like to change in the motorhome because the latches on riding boots tend to scratch cabinets and tear upholstery and riding gear gets pretty dirty, something that is all too easily transferred to carpets and upholstery. Not only did the Smuggler haul our dirt bikes in it, it provided permanent storage for all of our gear, supplies, tools, and spare parts -- and made comfortable bedroom for 2-4 of the kids in camp. After several years of faithful service from the 16 footer, I found a 20' Smuggler. It was very similar to the 16 footer, but it came from the factory with a furnace, a shower, a gas refrigerator, and a hot water heater so it enhanced our extended living space for our dirt bike trips and made the boys more comfortable. The extra propane and water were a boon on extended desert outings. It didn't have a toilet or built in holding tanks but with the addition of a porta-potty, it was self-contained enough for limited outings for part of our family without having to drive the big motorhome. It towed easily behind our 3/4" ton pickup.

Utility trailers may be a fairly inexpensive way to transport your toys -- and you may be able to use them for other things as well. Some utility trailers are made from the bed of a pickup truck. Another popular option are flatbed "landscape" trailers, originally designed to haul riding lawn mowers etc.   Just be sure to tie down your OHVs securely so they don't shift or fall off during travel.  And be sure to purchase one of sufficient load capacity to handle the weight of your toys.  If you opt for an open trailer you will need a footlocker or other closed container to haul your riding gear -- or keep it in your tow vehicle.  I've seen people add a canopy to their flatbeds in camp to turn them into portable shaded patios in camp.

One fairly inexpensive and light weight option for a single motocycle is a trailer hitch mount carrier that holds the front wheel.  You need only lift the front wheel into the carrier so its pretty easy to  use.  However, the rear wheel of the motorcycle remains on the ground so it will wear the rear tire while towing the bike.  Hitch mounts are a pretty good options for bringing a street bike along for local use, but running the knobbies on dirt bike tires on the pavement is going to cause a lot of premature wear.

A 3 or 4 rail motorcycle trailer provides a very light weight solution to hauling dirt bikes. The only drawback to this style of trailer is the lack of anyplace to carry fuel, tools, spare parts, and riding gear, although some are equipped with a cargo locker on the tongue that will accommodate some of your stuff. A lot of riders simply tie down their tool box, gas cans, and gear bags between the vehicles, but that, of course, leaves them exposed to weather and may invite people you routinely exercise the "five-finger discount" to make off with your stuff.

Enclosed trailers protect your equipment during transport and can be locked to secure your stuff in camp --or while you're shopping in Walmart along the way. Some people even use them to store their toys at home and they are usually a good place to keep riding gear, tools, and spare parts at home.  I like taking the bikes out at home so I can move around freely in the trailer to clean and maintain riding gear, tools and other equipment. Having a weatherproof place to work on vehicles in camp is really nice.  Nice way to make productive use of what could otherwise be down time during bad weather.  Just getting up out of the dirt saves a lot of hassle, like looking for dropped fasteners or contaminating dropped parts in the dirt and having a place to work on them during bad weather is close to heavenly, especially if you've ever had to try to work on your ride(s) in the rain or wind!

Regardless of the style you choose, there are two major weight considerations you must address. First is the carrying capacity of the trailer. I once loaned my 3-rail trailer to someone to transport a large street bike and it came back with the loading ramp and one of the rails badly bent because the bike was way over the design limit for the trailer and the ramp. Check out the axle weight rating and the tire weight rating to be sure you don't overload your trailer.  An overloaded trailer will likely damage the suspension and may create handling problems.  Overloaded tires are likely to overheat, causing a blowout.  The second weight to consider is the combined weight of the trailer and everything you load in or on it. Make sure you do not exceed the towing capacity or the Combined Gross Vehicle Rating (CGVR) for what you'll be towing it with.  If you  keep your load within the weight ratings for the trailer and for the tow vehicle you shouldn't have any towing problems.  If you feel the trailer swaying behind your tow vehicle you might want to consider adding an anti-sway bar.  They mount between the hitch on the vehicle and the tongue of the trailer and provide resistance to keep the trailer from swinging back and forth so easily. 

Eventually I bought what has become our ultimate motorcycle trailer. It was custom built by an engineer and dirt bike enthusiast on a 5500 pound single axle. It was just a shell when I bought it, with a nice Kennedy toolbox and a counter across the front end. I added a sink, additional shelving, and closet rods to hang our gear. I wired it for convenient 12-volt and 120 volt lighting and outlets. Eventually I added a roof air conditioner (that can only be used when the trailer is plugged into a dedicated circuit I had to add to my motorhome to power it), vinyl tile floor, and an awning. I built special racks to hold the gas cans near the rear ramp door and installed a rack to hang tie downs when they aren't in use. I found a good way to keep our boots organized and keep them from drooping while in storage. I mounted some 6" spring clamps (found at hardware stores and home centers) and clip the back of the top of the boot in the clamp lifting the soles off the floor. The boots don't fold over and they stay put, even when the trailer is bounced around off-road. I use similar 3" clamps to hold my knee braces. I am a bit lazy and don't like pumping up tires with a manual tire pump so I added an air compressor and installed fittings at convenient locations inside and outside the trailer. Fellow riders have said it looks like a motorcycle shop on wheels! Building it and using it has been almost as much fun as riding and having tools and spare parts has saved more than one outing for my family and our riding companions.

There are many other ways to transport your OHVs. As mentioned before, one of my dirt bike mentors had a pickup truck and a 23' travel trailer. The bikes rode in the back of the truck and when he arrived in camp he unhitched the trailer and leveled it, then unloaded the bikes. Another rider and his wife had a camper on a 4x4 pickup and towed a small 3-rail trailer for many years before graduating to a 14" enclosed utility trailer. If you have ATVs you'll need a pickup truck or a flatbed trailer or enclosed utility trailer to haul them around. You might haul a single ATV or a couple of dirt bikes on a hitch-mounted rack.   Enclosed trailers have both advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is they protect from weather and prying eyes and theft while enroute and give you a cozy place to make repairs on your toys where you can be out of the wind and rain or sun and out of the dirt! And you can store your tools, gear, and spare parts in them at home so its all ready to go at a moment's notice. About the only downside is they are more expensive, heavier and often have more wind resistance than an open trailer, both of which can affect tow vehicle mileage and performance. Personally, I find the convenience well worth the impact on mileage and performance. Actually, I'm not sure the trailer has had much of an impact on my motorhome mileage, although I do sometimes notice a change in performance when climbing steep hills. My big Class A seems to be locked in at 7 mpg -- towing or solo, up hill, down hill, head winds, cross winds, sitting in a parking lot! Many people use a flatbed "landscape" utility trailer to haul dirt bikes and ATVs and snowmobiles. They are comparatively inexpensive and light weight. Two-, three-, or four-rail trailers are lightweight alternatives for hauling dirt bikes and some ATVs. However, I REALLY like having an enclosed trailer to organize and protect tools, gear, and spare parts and give me a place to work on the bikes in camp that is out of the weather and out of the dirt.  I can keep all my gear, tools, and spare parts in the trailer so its ready to go without a lot of scrounging up stuff.

If you already have a big pickup or SUV with good towing capacity, purchasing a toy hauler or a travel trailer may be the most inexpensive way to get you and your toys to and from where you can ride and provide comfortable accommodations for you and your family. A toyhauler gives you both living space for you and garage space for hauling your OHVs, tools, and riding gear.

There are a few motorhomes that have a garage for toys, but they aren't as common as trailers and are quite expensive. If you come across one at a good price, it would be convenient, especially if you travel in states like California and Oregon that have a 55 miles speed limit for vehicles pulling trailers.

In some states it is legal to tow a trailer behind a trailer. In these locations you may see boats and/or motorcycle trailers being towed behind a travel trailer towed by a pickup or SUV. If your state does not permit double trailers, you can still put a rack on the back of your travel trailer to haul your toys. Just be careful to watch the hitch weight. Hanging too much weight on the back of a trailer can make the tongue weight dangerously light, affecting handling and safety. If you run into this problem, but still have towing capacity and hauling capacity in your trailer, try loading the trailer heavy in the front to compensate for the toys on the back. In some states a non-articulated trailer is considered part of the vehicle it is attached to and not a second trailer. I've seen non-articulated, one-wheel trailers adapted to haul motorcycles attached to the back of travel trailers even in California, where towing multiple trailers is prohibited. The front of the one wheel trailer is attached in two places so it functions like an extension of the larger trailer rather than a separate trailer.

I have seen devices that slide into the hitch receiver and hold the front wheel of motorcycle and leave the rear wheel on the road. These off-load a lot of the weight that hauling them on a rack with both wheels off the ground if your vehicle has limited towing capacity and hitch weight restrictions, but you'll put a lot of miles on that rear tire -- and off-road tires don't typically stand up well to a lot of pavement and high speed and may be illegal in some places. These are usually used to transport big street bikes rather than off-road machines.

Motorcycles pulling motorcycles? I've even seen guys rig up a way to tow their dirt bikes behind their street bikes on a small single-rail trailer or loaded on top of one of those little fiberglass motorcycle trailers.  I think if I were in that situation I might opt for a dual sport bike I could ride on the street and in the dirt instead of having two bikes to maintain.  But many people prefer keeping them separate as dual sports tend to be a compromise that aren't as good on the highway as road bikes and not as good on the trails as dirt bikes.  Still, unless you're in professional competition, dual sport bikes are usually good enough for most people.

Be sure to check out what other riders are doing. You will learn some neat tricks for hauling your toys and stuff and get some idea of what will be the best solution for you. Many of the ideas I eventually incorporated into my current dirt bike trailer and my motorhome came from what I saw other riders doing. For example, a fellow-rider had built an ice-chest into the seating in his trailer. I found an ice chest that would fit into unused space under the seat in the dinette in my motorhome. Now we have extra capacity for cold drinks -- always a useful and welcome thing for desert dirt bike outings in the summertime! Fixed chocks secure the front wheels of dirt bikes for secure travel, but they consume otherwise usable floor space and become trip hazards when not in use. Removable chocks are a bit more expensive than their fixed counterparts, but are well worth it. Most are made of steel tubing and slide into special mounts installed in the floor. I found some that are made of steel channels that fold down flat into the floor of my dirt bike trailer and open up to the correct angle to hold the front tires and provide a slot for the tires to drop into when in used. Before I found those, I made my own home-made removable chocks by mounting the fixed part of door chain locks on the floor and mounting the right size, large-head screws into the bottom of inexpensive plastic automobile wheel chocks. When I needed the chocks, I just slid them into the floor mounts. In camp I could remove them and store them out of the way. I liked the way one creative rider used his loading ramp vertically, to keep the rear wheel of his dirt bike secure in his trailer.  It attached to fixed mounts on the floor and ceiling with the channel cradling the back of the rear tire.

Flooring options. If you have an enclosed motorcycle trailer, you have several choices for flooring. When I bought my current trailer, the floor was unfinished plywood. I painted the plywood floor of my trailer with garage floor paint. A few years later I covered it with black and white checkered vinyl tile. Solid vinyl or linoleum sheet goods would be more durable. Spilled fuel or lubricants can seep through the seams of tile and loosen the adhesive. Since both the painted wooden floor and the vinyl tile tend to be quite cold to stand on when changing in and out of riding gear, I picked up an area rug that closely fits the open floor space so we have a soft, warm place to stand while changing. When it comes time to load the bikes, we roll up the rug and stow in on top of one of the fender wells and secure it to the wall with bungee cords. You may find just using a small accent rug or a bath mat gives you a place to stand and takes up less room. Bath mats are usually very soft and have a non-skid backing so they are ideal -- and inexpensive. When they get dirty, you can just throw them in the washing machine. You might also toss them in your gear bag so you can use them if you're going out without your trailer.

Fuel storage. For any type of off highway vehicles you will need to transport fuel. This is usually done using plastic gas cans or traditional "gerry" cans. I like the plastic "motocross" style gas cans. They are square and don't tip as easily as the narrow oblong "gerry" cans. I prefer the translucent ones so I can see the fuel level inside. Some fancy toy haulers have built in gas tanks to fuel the generator AND provide fuel for your toys, with a nozzle that works kind of like pumping gas at the gas station. Another option is a gravity fuel system where the tank is mounted on the roof or ceiling. I built gas can racks onto the floor of my motorcycle trailer just inside the rear ramp door. The cans don't slide around or tip over and they are conveniently located for filling and for use. The racks are made of 2x4s on edge screwed up through the floor.  I put an eye bolt on each end and thread a tie down through the handles on the gas cans for extra security.  I would prefer to carry fuel outside, but keeping the gas cans properly closed and secured so they don't tip over doesn't present any more risk than the fuel in the tanks of the dirt bikes.  You should always make sure your enclosed trailer is well ventilated so any fuel escaping from gas tanks or fuel containers doesn't create a problem. A good place to transport gas cans is on the tongue or on a rack attached to the back bumper. Both of these locations place the fuel outside where fumes won't accumulate, but it does leave them more susceptible to theft.   Even if your cans are securely locked someone might siphon out your expensive fuel.   If you do carry your fuel inside your toy hauler, make sure you have adequate ventilation. I always leave the windows and roof vent open an inch or so to get some cross ventilation. Gasoline fumes are extremely volatile! Liquid fuel is pretty stable. I've seen demonstrations where a match was thrown into an open 1-gallon can filled with gas and the match went out. Do the same with only an inch of liquid fuel in the bottom and the upper part will be filled with fumes and you'll get a rather spectacular explosion! You definitely don't want your trailer to fill up with fumes! Open the roof vent an inch or two and leave at least one window open a little to provide cross ventilation to draw out any fumes from gas cans or the fuel tanks on your vehicles.

Other types of OHVs, like jet skies and snowmobiles, will have different transportation needs. Jet skis will need to be on a submersible trailer so you can launch them into the water. Enclosed trailers are not usually good options for jet skis. Snowmobile trailers often have pointed front ends with doors in the side of the point to allow the snowmobiles to be driven out instead of having to be backed out. Unlike ATVs, which are often loaded tilted back at an angle with their front wheels off the floor to get more vehicles in less floor space or dirt bikes that can be loaded very close to each other, snowmobiles require a lot of flat floor space. If you have sufficient room, a snowmobile trailer can be set up much like a dirt bike trailer to haul your tools, spare parts, and riding gear. Given the climate for snowmobiling you might want to add a furnace or propane heater to make the trailer more comfortable for working on your machines or just changing in and out of your snowmobile riding gear. Because a water tank will freeze, you probably won't want to install a water system in a snowmobile trailer. If you use the same trailer for summer outings and do have a water system be sure to drain it and properly winterize the system before freezing weather sets in or install some kind of heating system to prevent it from freezing.  There are thermostatically controlled tank heating pads that run on both 120-volt ac and 12-volt dc current.

Happy hauling!