Week 493-494 - Burgman Scooter Carrier - 01-31-2016

Suzuki Burgman and Scooter Carrier

In 2006, after owning eight other motorcycles, we discovered and purchased our Suzuki Burgman. First, while Mrs. Ellen is looking good on the Burgman, we never ride without our helmets. Second, the Burgman is the best motorcycle we have ever owned. We have had Hondas, Yamahas and Suzukis from 125 to 850cc. The Burgman is 650cc, an automatic and capable of 110 miles per hour. It carries two up the steepest mountain road and zips by an 18-wheeler in seconds. It is quiet and has a windshield and leg fairings to divert the wind. It gets 60 plus mpg and holds five bags of groceries under the seat. We highly recommend the Burgman 650 (not the 400) for anyone. It handles the fastest roads, steepest hills and is nimble in the city. Did we mention it can leap tall mountains in an single bound?

After our month's long research in 2005 resulting in the Burgman, we needed to determine how to carry it on the MotherShip. We looked at three choices.
1) The Hydralift hydraulic lift, at $4,578.00 (02-2016) the 2) Overbilt Electric Lift at $2.995.00 (02-2016) and (no longer can be found on the Internet 03-2020). . .

. . . 3) The VersaHaul VH-SPORT RO fixed carrier at $668.99 (06-2020) as pictured below. You can read more about all these carriers at Motorcycle Carriers. All three will also require hundreds of dollars of installation labor. We chose the VersaHaul for economic reasons.

The VH-SPORT RO carrier comes as shown below. It mounts only on the center 2" receiver.

[In a recent email conversation with Brandon from VersaHaul, we learned that our carrier is the VH-55 RO carrier which is not as stout as the VH-SPORT. It also mounts only on the center carrier and has a fairly weak ramp for the 550 pound Burgman.]

After the purchase, we invested with our local trailer shop to make modifications to create a more stable platform for the scooter. This travelogue shows all the modifications. Note that this will work for a motorhome, fifth wheel, trailer, pickup camper, truck or any SUV or car that is rated to carry 600 pounds on its hitch.

This is how the your motorhome looks before you begin. The 2" receiver protrudes from the chassis.

Step 1: Insert the ramp into the receiver and secure it.

Step 2: Two inch O.D. (outside diameter) steel receivers are welded to the motorhome chassis, one on each side.
Step 3: Two 1 and 1/2 inch O.D. arms are fabricated to connect the welded receivers to the carrier.

Note that a 2" O.D. square tube is about 1 and 3/4 inch I.D. (inside diameter). In order for the connecting arms to fit snugly into the receivers, steel must be welded on two sides of the 1 and 1/2 arms. You can see the material on the top and left in the right photo.

Step 4: The arms are inserted and pinned into the receivers. The arms are bolted to the tie down bars, rather than welded, for ease of installation.

Step 4: Fabricate tie down tubes that will connect to the arms. These are longer than those supplied with the carrier and will make for sturdier strapping.
Step 5: Slip the tie down tubes through the ramp and connect to the arms with eye bolts.
Step 6: Attach the ramp as provided by VersaHaul.

Step 7: The ramp comes with a bolted on "wheel chock". We modified the chock by removing the bolts and inserting two pull pins. This allows us to quickly remove the wheel chock.

Step 8: We modified both ends of the ramp. The original ramp is straight. As such there was a sharp angle where the ramp meets the carrier.
1) We had the top end of the ramp extended, curved and attached a very strong cleat. After the modification the Burgman no longer high centers at the ramp/carrier joint.
2) Because of the weight of the scooter the ramp can twist sideways if the tire is a little off-center. To prevent this we had a wide foot welded onto the lower end of the ramp.

This completes the ramp and as shown it is ready to load your two-wheeler. Loading the Burgman is easy because of the automatic transmission. You just walk along side and roll it up the ramp.

Before our changes unloading the scooter was tough. You had to release the parking brake and yank it backwards down the ramp. Our clever and easily removed wheel chock makes unloading as easily as loading. You just release the brake and power the cycle down the ramp. It couldn't be simpler.

Now for the loading demo. Dump the air suspension to lower the MotherShip. Connect the rear tie downs to the carrier. Power the scooter and walk it up the ramp. Bring it forward until it presses against the wheel chock. This is easy for just one person. But now you need to strap it on and that is trickier without a helper. When done solo Pete places a towel between the right hand grip and the motorhome and lets the scooter lean in. Then quickly straps the rear inside tie down that will keep the scooter from falling away.

1) The rear straps connect to the scooter frame under the body panels. 2) The front tie downs connect to the handle bars. The "bar harness" we use is the Canyon Dancer Original Bar Harness.

For convenience we taped our tie downs to the bar harness making the front tie down a single long strap. We recommend self-retracting tie down straps. It saves time in not having to tie off the loose ends. At times we have found the retractable straps at local stores, but not often. We ordered our third set online (yes, they do wear out in 10 years!).

The finished product. Extremely stable with no worries of the scooter rocking. Quick to load, we can do it in under 5 minutes. And our cost was $1,100 (04-2006) verses $4,500 to $5,500 for power lifts.

We have thousands of viewers for our website and travelogues. And we know that this one is of little interest to most. However, we have had inquiries from a dozen two-wheel riders wanting to know how we managed to make this work. So this week is for them and others who in the future can just read it online and not have to sit through Pete's explanation (blah, blah, blah).

Brandon, from VersaHaul states that you need NO modifications for the VH-SPORT RO. While this may be true we would still enhance the carrier. 1) The carrier is rock solid with three receivers. 2) The modified ramp keeps the Burgman from high centering. 3) The "down" ramp makes unloading as easy as loading.

We are still in Hemet, California at Golden Village Palms RV Resort. Pete is still working with our friends and client in North Hollywood. Ellen's knee is progressing, though not as fast as she would like. But she knows, as our friend Bobbie says, "it's a marathon, not a sprint".

With love, Pete, Ellen and Mandy

Photos from Sep 2015