Motorcycles are the most enjoyable and lovable traveling mode for every motorcycle owner. You need to invest lots of time and effort to search your dream motorcycle. After a wide research, you become successful to choose one and buy it. The next step after buying your motorbike is to ship it to your place. Sometimes you may need to transport your existing motorcycle to your new home location.
You can easily buy a motorcycle online, but real problems arise when you need to ship it. If the distance of your home is not too far, you can take it to your home by riding on it yourself. The situation seems like belling the cat when you need to load your motorcycle into a truck by yourself to transport it to another place.
Even if you are planning to hire any transport service, it is also important to have proper knowledge about loading motorcycles into any high-rise vehicle. It will help to identify if the transport persons overlook anything while loading. Moreover, before hiring any shipping company, carefully go through their shipping policies and damage insurance.
But in this article, we are focusing on how to load a motorcycle into a truck by own self. No matter what the reason why you are planning to ship your motorcycle, you must keep some logistical details and technical tips in mind to make a hassle-free shipping process.
Let’s check out the loading tips:
- Before loading your motorcycle into your hired truck, it is essential to check if the truck is hardly enough to carry your heavy weight gear if you are owning one. Otherwise, if you have an average sized motorcycle, hiring any standard capacity of pickup truck or van will be helpful.
- To make your motorcycle load into the truck, you should place your shipping motorcycle on a dry, firm and plain surface. Make sure that the surface is slightly inclined as this position would help you not to angle your ramp while placing it. Never use wooden pieces or plywood sheets to roll on your motorcycle into the truck because those may break or slide down due to excessive weight of the motorcycle. Not even try to load the bike on the truck in an uneven ground, it will cause sudden sliding or dropping off while loading.
- You need to choose your loading ramp as per your motorcycle’s weight. As some of the motorcycles are very heavy, you must select your ramp that would be able to carry the weight of your big buddy. Do not use two narrow ramps to make a wider one. If accidentally both the ramps get displaced it will lead to a disaster to happen. In case, you have to use multiple ramps, make sure to fasten them together with mechanical tie ups.
- Before loading, turn off the truck and keep the e-brake on. If you don’t want to harm the truck’s tailgate, definitely use a ramp with rubber stopper beneath the ramp to avoid misplacement (of the ramp) or you can simply remove the tailgate.
- Avoid hitting the bike-belly to the joint of the tailgate. Else, it may add extra expense to the bike’s maintenance cost. Instead, try attaching straps to the front wheel of the bike and pull it forward upon ramp without touching the tailgate.
- In case, if your bike model has a little ground clearance, try loading the motorcycle through a hill ramp. Trust me, it requires the least effort.
- Make sure to keep the motorcycle in neutral mode during loading. Else, the bike will not roll into the truck. The neutral mode gear varies from one model to another. Generally, it is found in the first or second gear of your bike. Some models have this option displayed on the gauge pod. Check if your bike is having one or not.
Securing the motorcycle after loading
- Use two pairs of soft loops to tie down the motorcycle tightly from the four lower corners of the truck. This will keep the bike in place while transporting it by a rough road. Moreover, it will reduce the possibility of damaging the motor-parts of your bike.
- To be on the safe side, use thick foam pads to wrap up your bike, especially the undercarriage portion to save it from sudden jerks. You can easily avail such wrapping foams from any automobile accessory store.
There are a lot more methods to load and secure a motorcycle, but the above-mentioned are the priorities.
