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Old July 13th, 2010, 08:52 PM   #1
Biker Bob
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Towing a Trailer??

I just got back from a 5-day camping/touring trip of the Blue Ridge Parkway area. The bike was loaded with saddle bags, a tank bag, tail bag, and sleeping bag/tent roll. Plus, I weigh about 185#. I would rather not carry that much on my bike and thought a small trailer would be a better deal. Has anyone had experience with towing a small trailer with the 250? What kind of trailer (2 wheel or 1?)? How did it tow? How was the hitch connected to the bike? Thanks for any help!

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Old July 13th, 2010, 09:09 PM   #2
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A motorcycle trailer hitch will attach to the swing arm. You will also need to get a lighting converter inorder to get lights back the the trailer. You're looking at a big investment and probably not very good performance with the 250 pulling a trailer. If you plan on touring or carring a lot of cargo, I would save the money from the trailer and buy touring bike.
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Old July 13th, 2010, 09:36 PM   #3
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I've seen motorcycles pulling trailers, and motorcycles being pulled on trailers, but I don't think I've ever seen a ninjette pulling a trailer of any kind. But I'd certainly be interested in hearing about anyone who attempts the project!
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Old July 15th, 2010, 08:05 AM   #4
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Why not a sidecar for more stability? Also, you'd have a sidecar in case a younger family member wanted to ride.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 09:35 AM   #5
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I have seen lightweight trailers for bicycles. I wonder if one of those could be modified for a motorcycle.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 11:15 AM   #6
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Rick, I am very familiar with those trailers. They are limited in how much weight they can carry (usually 60 Lbs) They are also built light weight for obvious reasons. The problem that I see would be the wheels, tyres, and bearings. They are rated for a very low speed. A fully laden touring bicycle would max out at 25mph going downhill. Anything over that would smoke the wheel bearings and blow the tyres. The Ninjette tends to be a bit faster. My recommendation would be to move the rear turn signals to the license plate bracket (the wires are long enough with some ccreative rerouting) This would allow you to carry larger saddle bags like Cortech. With a large tank bag and tail bag, you should be able to take a lot of stuff.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 11:57 AM   #7
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It would be a little sketchy pulling a trailer with a 250...even tho I always over pack I try and remember to ask myself if I really need this or that...less is always better. Some of those guys on ADVrider have it down to a science, pack little but always enough to get by.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 12:14 PM   #8
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Thanks for the suggestions. All good! I do have a sidecar bike, a Ural. It can carry a ton of stuff and I have a fairly large trailer for it. But it gets about 30 +/- mpg while I got 81 mpg on my last trip on the Ninja (I have re-geared it for better highway speed and mileage). Also, it is not nearly as reliable as the Ninja (with it I carry a complete tool set). Nor, is it nearly as fast as the Ninja; it seems happiest at about 50-55 mph. I have moved my turn signals; smaller, and mounted on the side of the license tag light, so I can handle larger saddle bags. My tail bag, empty, weighs 6 pounds, so I think I'll go with a lighter, nylon bag. I'm still interested in a small lightweight trailer, but I'll make these changes in the meantime.

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Old July 15th, 2010, 02:59 PM   #9
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Bob. I have found that when packing clothes that putting neatly folded clothes in a Zip-Loc bag and then sitting on the bag to let the air out helps conserve space. When sitting on the bag, zip it almost all the way, sit, and zip the rest of the way. Keeps things from getting wet as well. I think that fabricating a hitch would not present a problem. What I would be concerned about woild be tyres that can handle the speeds Ninja likes, and wheel bearings. If you can find a rolling chassis that adresses those two issues, you would be home free.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 03:51 PM   #10
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Quote:
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Bob. I have found that when packing clothes that putting neatly folded clothes in a Zip-Loc bag and then sitting on the bag to let the air out helps conserve space. When sitting on the bag, zip it almost all the way, sit, and zip the rest of the way. Keeps things from getting wet as well. I think that fabricating a hitch would not present a problem. What I would be concerned about woild be tyres that can handle the speeds Ninja likes, and wheel bearings. If you can find a rolling chassis that adresses those two issues, you would be home free.
I've used those travel "Space Bags" before (not for packing on a bike, but for packing luggage). They work pretty good. They have a one way valve so you can seal them, and then roll them to get the air out, and then lay them flat.
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Old July 15th, 2010, 03:54 PM   #11
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Here's a company which sells a small motorcycle trailer. Not sure how or if it works with a sport bike, but you could probably contact the company with questions.

http://www.motorcycletrailer.com/

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Old July 18th, 2010, 10:28 AM   #12
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check these guys too. pretty pricey, but they look like they work well

http://www.thirdwheeltrailers.com/index.php/trailers
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Old July 18th, 2010, 05:33 PM   #13
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That's pretty cool.
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Old July 18th, 2010, 05:47 PM   #14
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check these guys too. pretty pricey, but they look like they work well

http://www.thirdwheeltrailers.com/index.php/trailers
Pretty neat. Unless I would touring cross country regularly, I'd have to think if it'd be cheaper to just ship the cargo.
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Old July 19th, 2010, 01:32 PM   #15
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Here's a company which sells a small motorcycle trailer. Not sure how or if it works with a sport bike, but you could probably contact the company with questions.

http://www.motorcycletrailer.com/

Harbor Freight sells a small trailer like that for $299.

I think it would be too heavy for the Ninja 250.

My trailer that I pull behind my big bike:




It is based on the bicycle trailers and works well. I use an old mountain bike shock and spring. It does give the steering a "heavy" feel. The trailer sure beats having the weight up high on the bike.

I'm planning to build a smaller bullet-proof version for some dual sport trips I want to do. It will be a "flat bed" that I can just strap my gear to.

You have to be mindful of where you park, as backing is a bit more precarious. It is a good bit easier to pull straight out when you leave. A slight hill with a fully loaded trailer can make it tough to balance and push the rig at the same time.

Good luck
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Old July 19th, 2010, 03:53 PM   #16
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That's an interesting looking trailer. Is that a bicycle tire on the back? If so, I'd be worried that the tire would not be able to stand up to highway speeds and distance.
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Old July 19th, 2010, 04:12 PM   #17
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That's an interesting looking trailer. Is that a bicycle tire on the back? If so, I'd be worried that the tire would not be able to stand up to highway speeds and distance.
It is actually a Honda Cub scooter front wheel. It's small demeanor worried me when I first set it up, so I bought two new tires. I've put a little over 5000 miles on the first tire with no problems and surprisingly little wear!

My guess is that it will last 20K or so. I always carry the spare and a spare tube whenever I go on a long trip. We did a 9 day 3500 mile Pacific Coast Highway trip with it last year. For a two up trip it allowed us a few luxuries such as full size pillows, folding chairs, camera equipment, a small cooler full of cold drinks. I ended up hauling a few pieces of gear from others that went with us too! It handles the more than I ever anticipated weight load very well.

Surprisingly my fuel economy with the trailer in tow is about the same as without. It was actually better on some of the long highway stretches.
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Old July 19th, 2010, 08:07 PM   #18
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That is a great design. That is what I invisioned when I mentioned modifying a bycicle trailer.
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Old July 19th, 2010, 10:00 PM   #19
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It is actually a Honda Cub scooter front wheel. It's small demeanor worried me when I first set it up, so I bought two new tires. I've put a little over 5000 miles on the first tire with no problems and surprisingly little wear!

My guess is that it will last 20K or so. I always carry the spare and a spare tube whenever I go on a long trip. We did a 9 day 3500 mile Pacific Coast Highway trip with it last year. For a two up trip it allowed us a few luxuries such as full size pillows, folding chairs, camera equipment, a small cooler full of cold drinks. I ended up hauling a few pieces of gear from others that went with us too! It handles the more than I ever anticipated weight load very well.

Surprisingly my fuel economy with the trailer in tow is about the same as without. It was actually better on some of the long highway stretches.
Sounds great!
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Old July 20th, 2010, 07:20 PM   #20
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155 LBS. about half the weight of a ninja. Kinda scary
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Old July 20th, 2010, 08:01 PM   #21
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155 LBS. about half the weight of a ninja. Kinda scary
The tongue weight should only be around 24lbs if I remember Trailer Loading 101 (15% gross weight). I may be wrong though.
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Old July 20th, 2010, 08:22 PM   #22
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Exclamation

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155 LBS. about half the weight of a ninja. Kinda scary
You definitely want to scale it to the bike. I wouldn't have more than 100 lbs total on a 250 Ninja.

Something more like these:
http://www.trailtail.com/specs.html

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Old July 21st, 2010, 09:06 AM   #23
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Now that is a great product. That would fit the need perfectly.
Great video showing the product and perfect theme music. The Man In Black

http://www.trailtail.com/download/trailer_video.wmv
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Old August 11th, 2010, 08:02 PM   #24
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Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas. For the near future traveling, I've down sized everything: polyester clothes instead of cotton (where possible)(smaller to pack and can take fewer as I can wash out and dry overnight), smaller tent, lighter nylon tail bag, some compression bags (from ebay), sleeping pad instead of air mattress and pump, and only the bare necessities. This should help a lot. For the long term I going to check into either buying or making one of those trail tail type trailers. All good ideas! Thanks a million.

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