How the bike actually travels
Enclosed, chocked, and strapped the way a bike is supposed to be strapped
Enclosed matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country. A bike on an open trailer running the Memorial Causeway or the Bayside Bridge is standing in salt spray for the whole trip, and salt does not care that the ride was only forty minutes. Add Florida sun on a tank, road grit off the truck ahead, and an afternoon downpour that shows up out of nowhere, and an open deck is just weather with wheels. There is a second thing nobody says out loud: an open trailer advertises. Everyone at the light knows exactly what you own and roughly where it is headed. Inside a closed box, it is a white trailer behind a white van.
The loading is the part that separates a hauler from a guy with a truck. The ramp drops and the bike rolls up. It is never lifted, so weight is not the issue a fridge would be. Front wheel goes into the wheel chock, which holds the bike upright and pointed straight on its own before we touch a single strap. Soft straps loop around the triple clamp, hard parts only, never around a fender, never around a plastic fairing, never cinched over the bars where you can bend something expensive. Then the ratchets pull the front down until the forks are compressed maybe halfway, not slammed to the stops. That is the whole trick. A partly loaded suspension keeps tension on the straps over every expansion joint on the Howard Frankland. Forks left at full extension let the bike breathe, and a bike that breathes works a strap loose. Forks bottomed out for two hours is its own kind of abuse. Halfway is where it lives.
- 13 foot enclosed trailer with a drop-down ramp, towed behind our cargo van with a proper hitch and ball mount
- Front wheel chock holds the bike upright and straight before any strap goes on
- Soft straps at the triple clamp, hard mounting points only, never a fender or a plastic panel
- Forks compressed partway so the suspension stays loaded and the bike cannot bounce a strap loose
- Moving blankets on hand for any contact point, and every strap checked before we roll out