Hauling a motorcycle (<400#) on as fifth wheel

[Laredoct]

We want to take our Honda Rebel with us when we travel. Currently it is mounted on the front of our Chevy silverado. It seems to block the airflow and cooling fans come on more frequently and temperature is running higher than ambient. Any ideas.

OR we could mount the cycle on the back of our Laredo 318 but the bumper is thin. Just hauling 2 bicycles has caused cracks in the factory bumper. Any options or ideas? Weld new bumber and or hitches to the frame to haul the motorcycle on back or additional engine cooling up front...pros and cons?

[transamz9]

It's all in the bracing you add.;)

[billmac]

I have learned in my old age that manufacturers don't usually use heavier materials that their intended load requires. I doubt they intended someone to put hundreds of pounds to bounce that far from the wheels. There have been reports on the Cardinal forum about Lippert frame cracks on around 2005 models.

This philosophy has kept me from towing another trailer.

[transamz9]

Quick trip wrote:
Adding 400 lbs. to the rear of the fiver is the same as taking 400 lbs. off the hitch!
Not a good idea at all!
Lot's of luck with how you solve the problem.

The tongue weight of my boat weighs more than 400#.

[thecampingman]

KOTR36 wrote:
campingman, do you have any problems with the bike obscuring the headlights?

Yup! I sure did. But I drove it around for 5 years that way. But I really dreaded cutting into the truck's wiring and installing those snowplow type headlights on stalks. I have enough problems with that truck's wiring already. So for 5 years I drove around with only 1 headlight hitting the ground. It didn't matter to me, I only go in the daylight. Never got a ticket. I totaled the cycle, and now have bicycles & kayaks. I actually like them better in Florida.

I once had my 500# Honda mounted on the back of a 32' CarriLite 5er. A trucker flagged me down on I75 and said "You're loosing it!" He said it was jumping around like a frog. He tied it down to where I could get it the 100 miles to the house. It never rode back there again.

[El_Camino_Man]

The guy my grandma and grandpa bought their camper off of said he had a bike rack on the rear hitch of the camper. He said the rack came apart due to the flexing of the frame and lost his bikes somewhere along the interstate. Since its mounted behind the camper, youd never see it fall off.

Id hate to see the same thing happen to a motorcycle!

[KOTR36]

campingman, do you have any problems with the bike obscuring the headlights?

[thecampingman]

Are you covering the motorcycle? Because there ain't enough to a Rebel to block anything.
I've put 10,000 miles carrying my motorcycle on the front of my truck. In all my conversations about front mounted motorcycle carriers I've never heard of one blocking the air flow.

I think you have other problems.

[KOTR36]

Laredoct,
I added a rear receiver hitch to my 5er and bought a motorcycle carrier from Cabelas for $150 and it works just fine. And my motorcycle is also a Honda Rebel weighing in at 335 lbs. And it does not take off that much from the hitch. It only would if the distance from the axle to the rear was the same as the distance from the axles the hitch. It is more like a 1:2 ratio so it decreases the hitch weight by 170 lbs +/-. That being said, it adds the 335 lbs, plus the 170 to the trailer tires. So you have an additional 125 lbs on each of the trailer tires, assuming you have two axles.

The carrier I bought has a removable ramp and I can walk the Rebel onto it under power. To clarify, I walk along side the bike and run the throttle as it climbs up on the carrier. The manufacuror says not to do it that way, just in case you are a complete dolt running the bike. A bit of cya on their part. I use a few ratchet tie downs to secure it.

We put a couple of thousand miles travelling that way last year.

Here is a link to the carrier.

[Veebyes]

For a long long time I kicked around the idea of carrying a motorcycle too. Even checked with manufacturers on how much weight they would carry back there.

The consensus was around 300# max including the mods necessary to weld something to the frame. Figure the bracket to carry the bike is going to be at least 50# & there is not much left for a bike.

My bike of choice would have been the Yamaha TW200 dual sport. Even that is 280# wet.

There are other options involving trailers of various descriptions but then you run into the legality of using them from one state to another.

Hey, as a former Honda owner & still a fan, nice bike.

[Quick_trip]

Adding 400 lbs. to the rear of the fiver is the same as taking 400 lbs. off the hitch!
Not a good idea at all!
Lot's of luck with how you solve the problem.

[jauguston]

Your best of no real good choices is leave the bike up front and do what is needed to fix the air flow to the radiator. Adding that much weight to the back of the trailer will likely not turn out well.

Jim

[stripit]

go to a truck scale and weigh each of the trailer axles separately.Find out how much weight is on each axle and check your tires on the trailer to see exactly how close to the max load each is already. Adding 400lbs plus a mounting asm for the bike might just be more than the tires can carry. Worth a look before you go to the trouble of building a bike rack on the rear of the trailer.

[Old-Biscuit]

2" hitch on rear of 5'vr and then a motorcycle rack


Don't know why this is in Class C Motorhome section