The bigger the annoyance, the bigger the solution must be, right? Well in my case there where a couple of big annoyances that lead to my biggest project to date. And as an added benefit I might eventually be able to combine 2 of my most favourite leisure activities.
Being bored
So what where those annoyances I had? Well I started noticing I was get bored with driving my motorcycle. And for that reason I also went driving less and less. That was not for the motorcycle itself, because that I still love driving that. No I got bored with the scenery. I never cared much for driving large distances on the highway with my motorcycle. And therefore the times that I do drive, I drive locally, often with similar scenery, or even (a variation of) routes that I driven already before. Don’t get me wrong, I still love driving my motorcycle. But since I’ve been driving half of my life on motorcycles already I want need to explore other sceneries to keep it interesting for me.
Therefore I already started thinking of ways of transporting my motorcycle on a trailer. This would eliminate the need of travelling long highways distances on the motorcycle while still opening up a lot of new opportunities. My first design was a caravan with a pop-up roof, fold out side tent and the entire back would be opening up to become a ramp so the motorcycle could be parked inside.
The big problem with this design was that I could not build it the way I wanted it, while keeping it within the towing capacity of my car. Because with my motorcycle being 225 kg and my car having only a 900 kg towing capacity it would only leave 675 kg for the trailer. I even looked at prebuild box trailers that I then would modify, but even they would already be to heavy without having any modifications done. So I “parked” the idea for a while.
Easier camping
Another annoyance I had was with camping. I’ve always really enjoyed camping. For me camping fits in my mindset of not caring where I sleep because I’m there to enjoy my vacation. And for me, especially since I go camping in the off season, it gives me more privacy and quietness then any luxury hotel can give me. On top of that when I go camping I go by car so I always have the availability of my own transportation when I’m on vacation.
Sounds great right? So then what’s the problem?
Well the problem is not with the camping itself. It’s more to do with the preparations and setting up on the campsite. Last year I went camping in Italy near lake Como. The night before I left I spend 4-5 hours to fit everything into my car. Then the next day I had to unpack everything again and setup my tent. Trust me, that’s not something to look forward to when you just had a 13 hour drive. All in all not a really relaxing start of a vacation.
And on top off all that driving around lake Como should be done with a motorcycle and not with a car, and so there I started thinking of my “parked” idea again.
Back to the drawing board
And so I started to think again. So I set a few requirements for the trailer. My requirements?
- I need to be able to take my motorcycle with me
- Easy setup of a sleeping area once on the campsite
- Having a designated space for the camping equipment as much as possible
As I’m a big believer of not reinventing the wheel again, I started searching online of how others solved this problem. And although there where not many solutions, I did find something that I build my idea on. That solution? A dirt bike trailer for 2 dirt bikes with a frame on top that carries a roof top tent. It hits at least 2 of my requirements. I can take my motorcycle with me, and a roof top tent is easily to set up.
Where as the other trailer was used for multiple motorcycles, my trailer would only need to carry 1 motorcycle. Because of that I still had enough space left to make cabinets alongside the motorcycle to store my camping equipment. And so I designed my ideal solution.
