Mounting a motorcycle on a travel trailer

I'm looking to mount a 500lb motorcycle to the back of a travel trailer. What is available out there?

Yo Survivalist, the most important thing you want to remember is that when it's all packed up and ready to roll, your "tow behind" trailer rig (no matter what configuration) better have ~ =>10% tounge weight or you could be in very deep weeds. I think in Europe they go as little as 8% but here in the USA most info sites will tell you to have 10% - 15% tounge weight. etrailer.com is a pretty good site for info on all types of trailer towing, etc. Good luck.
Cheers
Dave
Our current rig

Travel trailers range from 12 foot pop ups to 50 foot, four axle, 5th wheel, monsters.

What do you have?

I'm looking at a 32ft travel trailer.

Dont think a "regular" travel trailer will have the chassis to support. Likely have to weld 2 receivers and mount a carrier that houses big tourers on the back of motorhomes.

I bolted and welded a couple 2" receiver tubes to the frame of my Montana 5th wheel. Welded the underside in the middle of the I beam underneath.
Then a local had a used aluminum gizmo with a rail that he custom made to fit a bike on the back of a motor home with receivers welded to the frame. Slips right in the receiver tubes. I hauled a DR650 350 lbs and a 300 lb KLX250S probably 11,000 miles in different trips without a problem. I may haul a KTM 640 Adv sometime but will drain the gas first to lose weight.

As Concour Mower stated it will have some effect on the tongue weight but was a non issue for me. I could feel it was there.......... '06 Chev 2500 HD shortbed 4X4 crew cab and a 12,000 lb trailer.
As Maggot12 stated a bumper pull travel trailer get some or a lot of their strength in the box of the camper and may have a lighter frame. A mobile home has a very weak frame as they use the box for strength, like cargo trailers also. Look at the frame of a semi flatbed trailer vs a box trailer. I was able to tour the Keystone Montana factory and saw the frame of a fifth wheel, much heavier. BTW, if you ever get a chance to tour an RV factory, do it!!

It all was a pain in the arse to get set up and a constant item to think about going down the road if something breaks or a strap let's go or :eek1 then .

I have friend locally that carries a Husky DS bike and a generator on the rear of his travel trailer. He worked with a welder and they basically extended the main frame rails back to build the rack and bile rail on. He did find that after 5 to 10 K miles that his frame around the leaf spring mounts was starting to crack. They welded on plates to both sides of the frame along about 3/4 of the length.

This is on about a 28ft trailer. And he has been careful to maintain a 10%+ tongue weight and it has worked out well but to make the frame strong enough it was a lot of work. It can be done but it's not a simple as just bolting on a carrier.

Good luck.

Ha! I did that on an 18 foot single axle TT and the result was... exciting to say the least. It threw the balance WAY off. But on a 32 foot unit might not be so bad.

I got some channel iron to extend the frame, and made some 2-hole flanges to bolt things up. So I could bolt the bumper directly to the trailer frame, or bolt the extensions to the frame and the bumper to the extensions. Didn't use it enough to break the frame. The bumper itself was too light to use for anything.

What's your comfor level with towing double?
Adding a small, dedicated motorcycle trailer might be the best solution.

http://rv-roadtrips.thefuntimesguide.com/2009/07/triple_towing.php

Another thought. What is your tow vehicle? A neighbor used to haul both of his dirtbikes on a rack attached to the front of his 3/4 ton when he needed to tow a travel trailer.

www.idahotote.com, it looks like what you need, as it carries most of the load, not the bumper.

Good luck.

FWIW, I think in most states you are legal for 5 axles, so technically if you wanted to tow your travel trailer, you could even have a fairly light motorcycle trailer behind the trailer (trailer inception I guess, lol). If you are going that route though then you have already attached a receiver hitch on the RV Trailer, and at that point could use one of the motorcycle ramps as well and honestly that could be a pretty nifty way to counterbalance the hitch weight on your hitch system (if that is indeed an issue).

Frames on RV trailers are built as light as they can be to keep the weight of the unit itself as light as possible. The axles are also placed in exactly the right position for the unit designed.

When you start to modify the frame to handle weight that does not belong where it is designed to be, then you are not only screwing with the original design which was never designed to have the weight where you are putting it, but also the way the trailer and the towing vehicle will handle.

500 lbs does not sound like much, but if it is on the back of the RV, then the weight on the tongue will be greatly effected by the Cantilever effect you will have on the front. If you put the weight on the front then you are going to effect the weight on the back axle of the towing vehicle and how it handles.

Think of it this way. 500 lbs added on to a 3000 lb trailer is an addition of close to 20% of weight.

That would be like adding almost 15,000 lbs to a 70,000 tractor trailer.

The difference being is that the Tractor Trailer unit is designed to take the additional weight.

But put that weight on the wrong spot on the Tractor Trailer and it turns into a night mare.

To make this type of modification safe, you should probably not only reinforce the frame and the axles, but also put better tires on both the tow unit and the trailer, such as 8 ply.

And you will need an equalizer hitch rated much higher than what the trailer requires.

If you see the new type trailers that have compartments built especially for motorcycles and quads, this is why. The design is built in.

As far as towing a third trailer, I would never do it unless the first trailer is a 5th wheel type unit. That would mean that the second unit would be a TAG. You will have a significant chance of the rear trailer whipping if both of them are TAG's, even if the first one is attached to the towing unit with an equalizer hitch.

That being said, you could just do what we use to back in the day when I was hauling 90,000 lb A-Trains over the mountain passes in the winter in South East British Columbia....."Fold the mirrors in and hammer-down, Good Buddy"...

It just seems like a bad idea to me.:eek1

It depends on the trailer's frame. If you can support a class 5 hitch you can use one of these:



Lots of choices out there.

I decided a toy hauler was a better choice though, I sold my 34W Arctic Fox and bought a big 5th wheel with the rear garage. If I had it to do over again, I would get a Desert Fox TT about 30 to 34' long, the kind that does not have the separate garage.

This is what I went with though, too big really, but the 43' long sucker is like a small house....

THAT is a cool looking unit! I've seen smaller ones with one wheel designed for cars.

What is a TAG trailer? Sorry to butt in. Thanks

Your not butting in, it's a 3 year old conversation!
Think of the term "tag along " as in tagging behind the tow vehicle.
Toy haulers are popular for a reason, not that I have or want one though...

Thanks, just posted photo of our rig, almost back home now on road trip from NC to California and back to NC.

For anybody putting a bike on the end of a trailer, the uplift on the tongue will be:
P * a / L
And the extra axle load on the trailer will be:
P * ( L + a ) / L
Where
L = distance from tongue to centerline of trailer axle(s)
a = distance from trailer axle to bike carrier
P = weight of bike and carrier

Definately have to pay attention to the 10% rule if you have a smaller travel trailer. My folks had issues with their 28' fifth wheel and the axles being massively overloaded. They also had issues with weld cracks on the main tongue assembly. When I took a look I was shocked at what I saw. I am a structural engineer and I saw no sign of any "proper" engineering of this critical connection for towing a 16000 lb trailer. I actually wrote the company a formal letter. Life safety shit. Seems like a completely unregulated industry. When they replaced their trailer I spent alot of time walking the yards looking at basic chassis design and was surprised at the number of units we removed from the list. They were going to the baja every year so this was a big deal on the Mexican roads.

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