Maverick Carrying Street Bikes, Track Bikes

[DubiousDucky]

Just wanted to share my experience loading my 18' Triumph Street Triple 765 in the Maverick bed. I'm planning on doing a few track days this spring and summer and I'm very excited to be able to take the bike on my own. Last year I went twice, once borrowing a car and renting a uhaul trailer which ended up being fairly expensive, and trailering was such a pain. The other time I choose to ride instead which in itself was awful. I couldn't bring extra gas, had to pack light on food and water as everything I had was in a backpack that I had, couldn't bring any sunshade or chairs... The Maverick (hybrid, xlt, and lux) is as fuel efficient as the street triple and quite a bit more than the Subaru I was using to haul the trailer which is nice as the nearest race tracks are still a couple hundred miles away. For me this opens up the possibility of going to tracks farther away as well because of the ease and no added expenses for multi day trips.

Driving with the bike in the back was very easy. I could tell it was there but only barely. The biggest change was an added vagueness to the steering. I didn't catch the fuel economy that I got on the little test drive with the bike but I don't expect that the extra few hundred pounds and tiny bit of wind resistance would reduce economy more than a couple mpg lower than my normal indicated 38-45mpg with mixed driving. This would go down with mostly freeway as well.

Loading and unloading was easy, not quite as easy as the trailer obviously. This was my second time ever loading a motorcycle into a truck bed and I appreciated the low bed height especially since I decided to load on a flat surface, everything went smooth and the tailgate didn't seem to mind the weight of the bike on the ramp. As you can tell from the photos the back tire of the bike does rest about in the middle of the tailgate, it would be nice if it didn't but I don't expect any problems as long as it's just the one bike. At a standstill that's about 180lbs resting on the tailgate. All of the tie downs in the bed was great although I do worry about the load that the smaller ones can handle. I loaded most of the weight of the bike on the floor mounted rings, using the smaller hooks on the side of the bed for the back corners but with only a few lbs of load as a backup.

The Street Triple has a wheelbase of 55 inches and a length of of 80 inches, it should be roughly the same as any 600 class sportbike for reference.
The bike was my daily until I got the truck hence the topcase mount and windscreen. Now it isn't on commuting duty any more.

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[fmt]

thanks for posting pic... was wondering If I could get
a z900rs in the back.. looks like it would just fit.

I'd put a piece of 5/8'' or 3/4'' plywood under tires, for extra support on tailgate.. say 2'x 7'

 

[DubiousDucky]

thanks for posting pic... was wondering If I could get
a z900rs in the back.. looks like it would just fit.

I'd put a piece of 5/8'' or 3/4'' plywood under tires, for extra support on tailgate.. say 2'x 7'

I definitely think it'll fit, the back tire will be a touch farther back on the tailgate. The z900rs wheelbase and length should be about 2 1/2 inches longer so I would expect the tire to rest about 2/3 the length of the tailgate where mine was roughly half, not very scientific but I hope you get the idea!
I like the plywood idea. Definitely taking the bike over a longer distance I imagine the anxiety of that weight on the tailgate would get to me.

 

[chuckwallabaca]

This is great! Thanks for the picture! I just measured the contact-patch to contact-patch distance on my 08 cbr600rr and I'm also at 55".

I agree some tailgate support would offer some peace of mind especially when hauling two bikes. It's probably necessary.

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