I bought myself one of those hard-top pop-up tent trailers made by Jumping Jack Trailers www.jumpingjacktrailers.com and knew from the beginning that because it is a higher platform on which the quads are loaded, longer ramps need to be used to keep the angle from being too steep. I bought a tri-fold 84 inch ramp, thinking that it was long enough, and now I have a long gash in my forehead and scalp. At the end of our first ever outing, when we were loading to go home, I attempted to carefully drive the Bayou 220 up the ramp onto the platform. (Yes, I was leaning far forward, thank you.) As the quad began to bog down from the incline, I gave it a bit more gas to compensate. Quicker than I could realize what I had done, halfway up the ramp it stood on its rear wheels, and rolled back on top of me as it and I crashed to the ground. Because we were done for the day (and I'm a newbie), I had removed my helmet. The bike was unsuccessful at popping my head like a grape. It DID, however, ruin any chance of a Hollywood career. Fortunately I was not hurt worse, because it was 1.5 hrs. before we reached a hospital. None of this is the fault of any design with the trailer. But even though I may still find longer ramps, I'm going to invest in a winch for each quad and simply winch them up from now on. That,...and I'll not remove my helmet until the quads are secured on the trailer and we are ready to roll. Maybe not even then. Now if I can just stop seeing double,.....

 

Glad to hear you weren't more seriously injured. How high is that platfrom? I also would not have imagined that 84" ramps weren't enough. Heck I load mine in a Z71 with just 72" ramps.

 

Always wear a helmet. Seriously. Glad to see it wasn't any worse. But I think more accidents happen loading than any other time. It's a short amount of time, but very dangerous. One person I know was hurt when loading into a regular toy hauler. Throttle stuck on this old Suziki quad. It's now "The Terminator" to go along with the owners Zilla.

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aftsux, Ouch, I carry two quads on a rack in the back of my truck, I made an extention to my racks that makes them about 9 feet long. They still are not long enough, the rack sits about 5 1/2 feet off the ground. When I load my quads, I use a electric winch, takes a little longer, but a lot safer. It's been mentioned once, but wear a HELMET, it would of saved your hollywood career[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] All joking a side, glad that your ok and will be investing into a winch, it does make it a lot safer to load.

 

And welcome to the forum[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Dont forget getting down can be dangerous as well. Last fall I was backing my sp600 out of the bed of my 2500 chev(kinda high). Normally, as with every one, you just get the back wheels down on the ramp and she rolls right off. Well it was cold(20f) and my machine was not real warm yet but I hopped on and started to back it out of the bed. The cold motor hickupped when I gave it gas so I feathered the throttle a bit to keep it going but the motor cought at way to many rpms and I went backwards at breakneck speed. The quad was crooked after I hit the ground and came close enough to flipping it that I have used my sled trailer since.

 

Most of the worst crashes I have seen, have been almost standing still, when the bike tips over. Loading ramps are particularly treacherous. I don't use them unless absolutely necessary!

 

Before we got our new truck, Hubby would load the 2 Prairies side by side in/on the bed of our '77 Chevy. There is a pic of it in the Windrock folder. It always scared me when he would load them, he had to take them OVER the side of the bed. We have 84" ramps NOT long enough - it was soooo steep. Glad you didn't get hurt real bad. (Mrs. Q)

 

SkiDood, you are right about getting them down. I use 3 straps to help me get mine down, 2 to put on the handle bars and one on the back, I have someone pull on the back strap as I control the handle bars with the other two to lower it down the ramps. Not the perfect control system, but it's worked so far and no one has been hurt. I just make sure nothing is behind the quad. Someday, I'll have my toy trailer and won't need to improvise[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

I agree that the loading and unloading can be exciting and downright dangerous. I didn't even like loading into the back of our S-10 with it's relitivly low bed height.

Took an old boat trailer I had setting around and modified it into a flat bed just for hauling the quad. Deck is just 19" high when it's setting level and the back is only 12" off the ground when I run the rear wheels of the pickup up on some little wood ramps I made. Makes for easy and safe loading but I still winch it on and off. Made some small wood ramps that pin to the back of the trailer so the ramps and deck are at almost the same angle to the ground. I still need to mount some kind of box to hold the tie down chains and binders and make a mount for the spare tire.

My old bones would take too long to heal up anymore and I'm not going to take any risks I can avoid.