Tow strap?

How many of you bring a tow strap with you on a trip? What kind of strap do you bring? Are there any light weight straps?

Kyle

If off road, and rough terrain, I carry a length of rope. I recently bought a very small block and tackle, hope I never have to use it.

MSR makes a dedicated small light motorcycle tow strap.
google it.

Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for.

I have used tow-straps and tug-straps for getting other Jeeps unstuck when offroad but I have never used one for a motorcycle. Is there a safe way to make it happen? I did a quick YouTube search and found some videos and even found one where they tried to bump-start the bike via tow-strap and ended up dragging the bike sideways.


Good video using tow-strap offroad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lzbMmoM050

Bad video using tow-strap:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi6N5Iyqfwk

I can't see much use other than to drag a bike out of a ditch.

Few guys I know carry two small ratchet straps 1 inch by 6 foot, for strapping down on the ferry, or pick up truck haul out, or put together tow strap...

P.S. I have seen 4 packs in different lengths at costco & home depot for like $10.oo or so...

some ferries require 4 straps...and depending on traffic, they may or may not be able to give them to you...

I read in a magazine many years ago how to safely tow a motorcycle. You wrap the tow strap around the towed motorcycle's handlebars a few turns, then clamp it to the hand grip with your hand. With the right number of turns you can hold it with out strain, but when released it will pull free. It likely will take a couple trys to find the right number of turns. The important thing is the towed rider be able to release if there is a problem, instead of being drug. This method worked well the once or twice I needed towed.

In my opinion neither of those videos showed safe towing.

Walter

2 kayak straps. They are continuous loop and about 15 feet long.

What he said ^^^^^^

Done it a few times.

I got a tip recently on a way to tow. Go from footpeg to footpeg with the strap...then the strap doesn't want to pull either of the bikes over and you're going nearer to the center of mass of both bikes. I haven't tried it myself, but I have a friend who was in a tow situation last summer and he said it worked great.

I carry 550 paracord with me if I'm going anywhere longer than a couple of hours from home or am camping. Braid it or just loop it several times and it will easily have enough strength to act as a tow rope. This way you have an item that has multiple uses, which is great if you're packed heavy as is, like on a longer trip.

Thats the best way. I towed someone out on a g450x because the wimpy battery died. I don't wrap it, i just step on it. If anything happens, i just want it to slip free.

I towed a BMW F650 Dakar 25 or 30 miles in Uzbekistan after it fried its wiring harness. Across pavement, dirt, and a welded steel plate and oil drum floating bridge- greasy and polished and long! :eek1

Uzbekistan


Fried wires



We used a 20 foot x 1 inch climbing webbing as the tow rope. Tied to my right footpeg and wrapped once around the Dakar's crashbar before ending up at my partner's left handgrip. We got pretty good at keeping the strap tight and making big wide corners.

Now I usually carry a 15 foot x 3/4 strap with me when I ride out in the backcountry.


...........shu

Ride report if anyone's interested: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=568261

That is all great information to remember!! Thanks for sharing.

Last summer I met a guy on the side of the road with a broken throttle-cable so I pulled out some tools and hacked the handle-bar enough so that he could pull on the cable with a vice-grip to try to ride it home - then he ran outta gas and then a thunderstorm kicked-in and I felt so bad because I had no way to tow him to the nearest gas-station and I didn't have any spare fuel or any way to transfer it either ...

Now I carry spare fuel (MSR fuel-tank) but haven't got a strap - I'll take your ideas and get a strap setup for future cases like this!

12-13' of strap. Loops around the left peg of the bike pulling, the right peg of the bike being towed.

Use it to get towed if your bike breaks down.

Guys, buy yourself some paracord.

It is super cheap and packs down very small. I've used it several times to tie the bike down during towing. I also used it to get a tow from a car.

Here is a video clip of when I used it to get a bit of a tow after I fried my clutch plates.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Yjc9ImnDTSs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

They must not speak english.