Off Roading (Safely) with Dirt Bike

[abominablehoman]

I am afflicted...let's start there. I love off roading my raptor and I also love riding my dirt bike (Enduro) so wondering what everyone here has found to be the safest equipment, process, etc for driving your raptor off road with (ahemm) a 'purpose' with a bike in the bed. Many like me I'm sure find time in the forest between family, work, and general life commitments to be rare earth so I try to combine my trips whenever I can. I'm not expecting to race the Baja but would love feedback on setups to manage some solid trails. FYI, currently a roughly 220ish Lbs bike, heavyish KTM (same as pro taper, etc) straps on the bars, cinch straps to compress the rear, a ForkSaver3k (2x4) and a failsafe through subframe.

 

[Sozzy12]

I'm not sure off roading and Raptoring with a bike in the bed is a good idea.... I use a hitch carrier to get to a trail head then offload and ride from there. I also have a shell on my truck, so my BMW 650 won't fit in the bed...

 

[abominablehoman]

I'm not sure off roading and Raptoring with a bike in the bed is a good idea.... I use a hitch carrier to get to a trail head then offload and ride from there. I also have a shell on my truck, so my BMW 650 won't fit in the bed...

Oh you're 100% right but I assumed my, "I'm afflicted" preamble would have covered that lol. Perhaps the answer is just that I must choose but hoping some wizard of mechanical engineering chimes in with a, "haven't you people ever heard of the manchild2.0 mounting system???"

 

[2slo4u]

I found that putting the bike at an angle allows me to strap the rear tire to the rear anchor point. This allows the bike to be anchored at the handlbars and rear wheel to the truck and allowed me to do pretty much whatever I wanted offroad (within reason) when I had a bike in the back. I'm not referring to rock crawling or highly technical terrain but it allowed me to do 70 MPH across the Arizona strip which included several cattle guard crossings that completely unloaded the suspension. I highly recommend a much more conservative speed or approach.

 

[GordoJay]

"haven't you people ever heard of the manchild2.0 mounting system???"

Mounting a manchild sounds sketchy. Our mounting expert is @Oldfart. Maybe he can give you some advice.

 

[Morgan915]

I've had good success with having one or two bikes in the back (hitting jumps at 100mph), but also some bad memories (bike flew out of the back after a strap broke). The biggest thing is using fork savers to fully compress the suspension, and some good ratchet straps. Key word being ratchet straps. I've had a few tie down straps fail from being old. They don't grip well or the fabric breaks down, mostly from being left in the back of the truck all day every day. I saw someone else say something about tying down the rear wheel which is something I do as well. If you want to get real crazy with it you can install more tie down points in the bed, especially for gear bags and fuel jugs.

If you are looking for the manchild mounting system, I think it's called lug and load by risk racing. Wanted a few for my trailer a while back. Too expensive for my taste compared to straps, but not as much as a new bike.

 

[Gator85]

Mounting a manchild sounds sketchy. Our mounting expert is @Oldfart. Maybe he can give you some advice.

Or maybe Jeffrey Epstein?

 

[mleaky]

I don't tend to get wild with the truck when I have bikes in the back, but if you were, this might help. I use one of these on my flatbed trailer.

https://riskracing.com/collections/moto-transport

 

[RobSpring661]

For 1 bike, angle it in so the tail gate closes , use 4 straps....two down from the triple clamps to the front corners, one from each side of subframe down to the rear corners.....Tighten then way down. Tie off each strap with the remaining tail to ensure it can't and won't pop loose......SEND IT. I have plenty of times. With the bike 4 pointed in and under load from compressed suspension it will not go anywhere.

Key is to use high quality straps with solid load ratings. I would NOT use harbor freight junk. Quality nylon webbing has a safe working load of over 3500 pounds, absolutely no reason a quality strap should break from a few hundred pounds of tension that a bike in the back could generate from lateral movement.

 

[GCATX]

I like to put the front into a corner an rear into opposite corner, strap the foot pegs the the bedside anchors and lash the back wheel to the other anchor. Solid.