Rear mount for dualsport?

[gearsoup]

Greetings, all!

I'm starting to sketch out my trailer in Fusion and I'm wondering about something. I'd really like to be able to bring my Honda CRF300L with me, as many of the campgrounds in the New England (USA) area are bordering maintained ATV trail systems. If I plan my build around that added weight, I should be able to locate my axle to safely handle the 300 pounds hanging off the back, no?
I know I could put it in the front in place of the storage box, but then I need to think of a way to store whatever would have been in there (likely electrical, cook/camping gear). So, what would you do? The dirt bike would be for when it's just my wife and I, and it would be limited to short exploration (no, not abandoning my wife for the day to go exploring)

Below is a rough sketch. Nothing is finalized and I've not spent a dime on this other than my time farting around in Fusion mocking it up. (aside from buying the Matt Berger book on Tear Drops)

The plan is to build a camper for my wife and I and have the kids use tents. They love tent camping, so it's a win-win!

 

[Tony Latham]

I should be able to locate my axle to safely handle the 300 pounds hanging off the back, no?

It's hard to tell from your diagram, but I think you're axle is too far forward even without all of that weight in the rear. The standard axle location for a small camper is at the 60/40 point on the frame.

If you're going to add the 300 pounds plus another 50 or so for the carrier, you need to move the axle back past that 60/40 point. How far? Dunno.

Make sure you have room for your doors in front of the axle, too.

Speaking of which, this is from some book about building teardrops:


'Door placement is critical. Put this book down for a moment and lie on your bed. Now sit up and swing your legs off as if you’re getting up–but sit there for a moment. Note that this is the same place that you sat on the edge of the bed before you laid down. Your pelvis will be about 30 - 33” from the headboard. This is where the doors need to be–right next to where your hips rest when lying down and where you usually sit on your bed.'

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

Well noted, thanks!
Truthfully, I hadn't really settled on where the axle would sit, I was still gathering data on what my weights were going to be like.
One thought I had to help counteract the weight of the bike in the rear would be to move my under-trailer water storage to the front of the axle (not necessarily the front of the trailer itself). A 20-30 gal would be plenty of ballast (although sloshing) and would help to balance things out.
I'm not too fussed about needing to cart the trailer around by hand so if there's a bit more weight in the front it should be fine. Of course, we do have the weight imposed on the tow vehicle (a Tacoma in this case), but I'll run the numbers before committing to that.

I've updated the location of the axle, mocked up the mattress location and added some doors (guessing on door radius):

 

[DrewsBrews]

As long as the tow vehicle can handle the tongue weight, moving the axle farther back will aid in towing stability. It also helps the trailer be more tame to back up.. I find trailers with short distance from axle to coupler to be very squirly to back up. Small inputs will send them off in a diraction very quickly, which can be difficult to handle.

Also if you have the bike on the back you can always pay more attention to how you load the trailer. If you transport things in the trailer put the heaviest stuff towards the front. Maybe bring a couple extra emergency gallons of water in the tongue box. Stuff like that.

 

[Tony Latham]

mocked up the mattress location and added some doors (guessing on door radius):

She looks good.

Make sure the bottom of the door sills sit halfway into the mattress, so when you are entering/exiting, your butt is on the mattress, not the wall.

Tony

 

[gearsoup]

Thanks! I'm thinking about a 6" memory foam mattress. Getting it in will be easy enough, since it's rolled up and shrink-wrapped. Removing it, I'd probably roll as good as I could and then ratchet strap it to get it out.
So, with that in mind, I'll need to move my door down an inch. I could go to an 8" mattress, but I think that's a bit overkill. In camping, I'm used to just sleeping on a 2" air pad, so 6" will be luxury. They're not too expensive ($200), so I'll likely buy the 6" to see if it's acceptable to my wife's comfort

 

[Tony Latham]

I could go to an 8" mattress, but I think that's a bit overkill

We use a mattress that is 5" of medium density foam with 3" of memory foam bonded to it. Purchased from The Foam Factory.

It's as good a mattress as any you'll ever sleep on. In a sense, a teardrop is a bed on wheels with a kitchen in the back. There is no reason not to have a helluva mattress.

Tony

 

[DrewsBrews]

Yep I use Foamfactory too, even for our bedroom mattress. They will cut to your dimensions. They will put the mattress in a cover you purchase there too. Saves fighting the thing in yourself. Though I don't remember if they will do custom sizes on the covers. They might. I'd suggest doing an inch or two smaller in each dimension on the mattress compared to internal trailer dimensions so it isnt a knock-down-drag-out fight to get the fitted sheet on.

Any time I ordered different layers it was not bonded. I don't mind. That way if the top layer gets too worn out I can easily replace it. Was the bonding a special option @Tony Latham ?

The folks at foamfactory do seem to care that you get what you want. They even called me one time when I did a slightly odd order to be sure I didn't get mixed up when ordering.

 

[Tom&Shelly]

I get the inch or two shorter, but after trying that for nearly 8 weeks straight, Shelly and I think we made a mistake.

We used to have one an inch or two larger than our cabin size and it was a struggle to get fitted sheets on. So when we bought a new one a few weeks before the trip we tried the shorter option. Problem is that as we crush it down the edges pull in and we lose nearly 4 inches on the sides.

We also made it too soft this time and it crushed down past the bottom of the doors. Our emergency solution was to put one of the two pads from the old mattress under this one, which sort of works except our feet scrape the bottom of the clothes drawer.

Needless to say, we will be trying something else after this trip!

Tom

 

[Tom&Shelly]

Oh, the mattress that was large tended to press against the doors which may have let water in during heavy rain. Haven't had enough rain on this trip yet to prove this is better, but we do suspect it is.

Probably our next mattress will be sized exactly for the cabin.

Tom

 

[Ron Dickey]

In many cases the mount them across the tung in the front of the trailer. A better way would to mount the cycle to the rear of the truck and extend the hitch and the truck would carry the weight. Look up images of motorcycle mounted on rear of Truck.

 

[gearsoup]

Yeah, after watching videos of simple bicycles bouncing around on the rear of a tear drop, I think I've abandoned the idea of putting a dual sport back there

 

[pchast]

Googled::::::::: Trailer Weight and Balance Equations and Calculator

 

[Wolfgang92025]

Attached is a copy of the weight distribution xls format for up to ten items.

 

[Wolfgang92025]

Turns out you cannot upload a XLS file. If you would like a copy, send me a message.