I did exactly what you are asking about and it worked fine. I am for some reason terrified of having my tailgate down. I pulled my bike in from left to right, front tire on the right side, turned right. The tire rested nicely against the front of my bed. No fairings were nearly touching. I took the seat off and used a strap on each side of the frame. I have built in hooks on the bottom of the bed. I would feel way less comfertable if they were not built into the bed, the low tight point gives good leverage.

 

wont hurt a thing, just make sure the straps arent touching in the front. I also learned that when I tailgate/gate is able to close you dont necessarily need tie-downs on the rear of the bike.

 

I just read more about the bike moving and hitting your fairings. Put it in gear. That should solve that, right?

 

Hi Nubby,

I've transported bikes just about every way possible since my dirt bike/motocross days. W/ my dirt bikes, I wasn't so concerned about the occasional knock/bump/etc that the bikes would take when in transit/loading/unloading. However, w/ my street bikes I took a totally different attitude. I don't want them to take damage - cosmetic or otherwise, that can sometimes happen when they are loaded/transported diagonally.

B/f I got my trailer, I had to haul the bikes in the back of my truck. Although I could get the bikes in & situated diagonally, I could not get the stability that I wanted. Instead, I would put the bike in straight & use a canyon-dancer w/ ratchet-straps to secure the front (careful not to over-torque the tension). Then, I would secure the bike w/ ratchet-straps from a mid-point on the bike & also by the rear wheel w/ rachet-straps to the rear corners.

Yes, the bike was too long for the truck bed for the tailgate to completely shut. So, what I did was to raise the tailgate as far as it would go (to w/in about 4-6 inches from closure & touching the bike's rear tire), & I ratchet strapped each side of the gate to the truck's tailgate hooks. It might have looked a little hokey but it worked great.

Later, I picked up a Baxley front wheel chock for use in my truck, on my trailer, in the garage, & at the track. You simply roll your front wheel into the chock & you're free to walk away from your bike. This is extremely helpful when you are by yourself & need to have the bike standing while strapping it down.

Anyway, I immediately thought of how I used to do that w/ the tailgate when you mentioned that you needed your tailgate either to shut or be removed. Maybe this would be a happy-medium solution for you. It will allow you to have your tailgate & to tow your trailer.

I wanted to include a pic for you but I don't have access to that computer at the moment. IF I still have pics, I'll post 'em up later.

Good luck.

 

Well I've seen the "partial up" tailgate done before and I'd be weary of hitting a bump and it dropping and smacking the trailer hitch. Like HD said above, I'm thinking about going corner to corner with it, but he made it sound like the front wheel was turned to the right? Wouldn't that let your left fork rub? At this point I think my best two options would be see if I can go corner to corner with the Canyon Dancer setup and close the tailgate or else see if my jack it removable from the trailer. I'd rather not mess with removing it if I don't have to because it will be a PITA to hook up/unhook until I get the bike unloaded at the final destination. My trailer is 18' long and tandem axle BTW so the hitch is a 2-5/16 and probably doesn't have a removable jack. I think I'll give it a test run this weekend going to the corners and seeing how unstable the front is and what the tie down vs fairing situation is. And the more I think about it, I really don't think I could even remove the tailgate, I believe the tire sits on the front of it. I just checked the GMC site and it says the interior bed length is 69" ...giggidy giggidy :-D

 

have you measured your bike and measured the bed dimensions from side to side? you said you have 69 inches for the overall length of the bed and your bike has a overall length of 85 inches. meaning youd have to gain roughly 16 inches of space going diagonally.

 

A little public math with 62.5 bed width and 69.3 long=
(62.5x62.5)+(69.3x69.3)=
3906.25+4802.49=
8708.74.
Sq rt of 8708.74=
93.32 so I should be good as long as the 85 is absolute front to absolute rear. I checked the specs online and it lists 85 inches.

And at 69.3 vs 85 (55.2 tread to tread) I'm definately sitting on the tailgate when you account for radius of the front tire added to the 69.3 box length so removing the tailgate is definately not an option...which is ok because I really didn't want to do that. I'm going to go for a run tonight (I still live in TX so I can do that in January) and stop by my trailer on the way back to look at the jack situation. Pending that and and a$$ pain of loading it this weekend for a test fit, I'll see if I need to order a set of Canyon Dancers.

 

Is your trailer jack (what u said has the interference issue) bolted on? can it be removed? Just jack-stand the tongue of the trailer where you can still hitch it up, load the bike, hitch the trailer and roll out.

How far are you moving?

 

you can also buy reese soft ties for about 3$ at walmart that do the same thing as the canyon dancers.

 

I checked on the way back from a run last night and in the dark it appears as though the top plate is mounted with 3 bolts and the bottom of the jack tube simply slides through a plate on the bottom of the tongue. I couldn't see very well in the dark but it didn't seem to have any welds on either plate. It would be a bit more difficult than simply putting in on jack stands since I'd need to lower it onto the ball but yes, it would work with a floor jack maybe. So I should be able to remove the jack, leave the tailgate down, and watch the turns. I'm moving 960 miles and would still prefer to keep the tailgate up since I'll have some other things in the back of my truck. My rear seat flips up and my 2 big dogs get that, then I have some stuff I usually put on the passenger side, and I'll have some luggage and a few totes in the bed because I don't want to open the trailer up and close it randomly. I appreciate the brainstorming and advice. I'm still planning on test fitting the corner to corner with the gate up this weekend and I'll take some pics if it looks like it will work ok. Good news is the jack removal with gate down is a good second option if needed...pending I don't get myself into a tight spot with the trailer/gate issue in a turn.