How to move six Z1's ?

We want to get ahead of this task before it becomes necessary and we're asking for advice.

This mostly concerns the area within CONUS, but we're interested in any & all suggestions from anywhere in the world.

2023 will likely be a notable year in the vintage motorcycle world because it will be the 'official' 50th. anniversary of the Z1.  We anticipate that there will be at least a few shows in CONUS & other vintage events that will showcase Z1's as a theme.

We'll almost certainly still have our full production set of six Z1's in 2023, and would like to transport them, as a set, to a few events that year.

We'd prefer a box truck instead of a trailer, as we don't own anything capable of pulling a long, relatively heavy trailer over long distances.  Too, a single vehicle can be more manageable than a long trailer but, a trailer is on our radar if that becomes necessary.

Open trailer might be doable if we use GatorHide covers on each bike, as we want to keep the bikes out of sight for security reasons and, weather/road grunge protection.

Looking for advice on any particular truck/trailer bed size & configuration, ramp vs liftgate & such.

A particular interest is portable tie down methods for six bikes that can be utilized in rental trucks and/or trailers without having to make irreversible modifications to a rental vehicle

Does anyone have experience with moving a half-dozen bikes at once?

Suggestions, please.

Thanks all.

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

I needed to move 4 motorcycles to a show a couple states away. Many moving trucks and trailers have aluminum bolt in floors. What I did was buy the cheap motorcycle chocks from harbor freight, and drilled the chocks to the bolt pattern on the floor of the truck. bought some longer bolts and fitted the chocks in place. make sure you also secure the rear of the bike from moving side to side as well as they can move and rub on the other bikes. I found a steep hill nearby so the moving ramp was near horizontal and rode the bikes in. I was hyper paranoid about doing this because youtube is full of people screwing up and dumping their bike off a ramp and I had to ride in a $30k show bike my boss had built- sweating bullets. If you can get a tailgate lift that would be preferable. Otherwise the key is to commit to riding it in and DO NOT HESITATE on the ramp.
One thing to note: I am not aware of any moving truck company that allows you to move a vehicle in their truck so if you go this route be aware that its probably against their policy and if you need to make an insurance claim you will bear the burden 100%

www.harborfreight.com/1800-lb-capacity-m...eel-chock-61670.html

That’s a lot of bikes!

Your options are pretty limited I think then. That trailer shows you how big they would take. You could rent a big U-Haul, that one is 26ft, but they may have air brakes and you would need that classification on your driver license.

Good luck!

JL

We had 4 bikes moved in a moving van when we moved from near Vancouver to where we live now, about 5 hrs away.  It was the move from hell, but that's another story.  The only issue I remember was to MT the gas tanks for the movers.

Moving vans have straps to tie bikes to the side of the truck.  I recall they wrapped them in those thick blankets that moving vans carry and strapped them tight to the wall.  A 26 ft U Haul would probably be large enough.  You just need some way to get the bike into the truck.  A lift???

In a pinch...Lots of low trailers around.  Horse trailers as an example.

 

Hey, slmjim - nice to see you back here.

I think being able to move the bikes in multiple directions will help you load a vehicle more efficiently. There are bike storage dollies available that allow you to have both [bike] wheels off the ground and have the bike strapped down while on the centerstand or sidestand. The dollies roll on swiveling casters so you can move them sideways, on an angle, etc. The dollies themselves will need to have parking brakes on the casters, but you'll be able to scoot the bikes as close together as possible while keeping them separated enough to prevent bumping.

A set of dollies might allow you to pack six bikes into a big box van (using a 3x2 matrix). You would have to roll them up a ramp, which could be a pain, or you could roll the bikes up the ramp and set them on the dollies inside the truck.

I have moved bikes in box-style moving trucks many times, but I've never moved more than two at a time.  Like DoctoRot, I started with a wheel chock from Harbor Freight.

www.harborfreight.com/motorcycle-wheel-chock-69026.html

But I made a bike stand in the shape of a "T" using two pieces of 2x10.  The top/horizontal part of the T is about 5 feet long, and the vertical is the length of the bike.  The vertical lays over the top of the horizontal, screwed together with deck screws.  The chock bolts to the vertical (and since it's raised up the bolts don't hit the floor), and the ends of the horizontal have U-Bolts with flush nuts on the bottom.  The bike rolls into the wheel chock, and I run ratchet straps from the handle bars to the u-bolts.  Now the bike is locked to the stand and can't go anywhere.  It's very stable.  I'll try to get a picture tomorrow.

All of the wood and hardware came from Home Depot.  Actually, the last time I did this I used a one-way truck rental.  I brought just the hardware, screws, and a drill/screw-gun.  I went to a local Home Depot, had them cut the 2x10 into two pieces, and built the stand as I picked up the bike.

Of the trucks I've rented, the Penske trucks have metal floors, and the U-Haul trucks have had plywood decking.  I have never seen a box style moving van with D-rings or tie downs on the floor of the truck.  I've only seen them with wood rails along the walls.

With the wood floors, I used 3 or 4 deck screws and just screwed my stand to the floor.  When I pulled them out I couldn't see the holes.  This is how I moved 2 bikes from Boston to Austin.  With the metal floors, I've used straps to hold the stand to the rails on the walls of the truck.  This worked fine with only one bike, with the stand pushed up against the front wall.  I'm not sure how it would work with 6.

The other issue is getting the bikes into the truck.  I think as the trucks get bigger, the deck height gets higher.  With 3 strong folks, or 2 strong young folks, you can get a big-four KZ up the ramp of a moving truck, but it's not fun.  The last bike I moved was a GL1500 Goldwing, and we used a scissor lift built into the floor to get it in.  That was really nice, but getting it out took 5 people.  I wasn't brave enough to just ride down the ramp.

Even if you found a lift-gate truck, the lift gates I've seen are wide but not deep.  So the bike would have to go on the lift facing sideways, and you couldn't roll it into the truck.  The movers that did my bikes had a lift gate, and once they brought it up to deck height they still had to basically pick up the bike to turn it into the truck.  I suppose if you had a dolly stand like this:  

loadall.com/products/loadall-garage-dolly



It's true that the standard in the professional moving and freight industry is to strap the bike to the wall of the trailer.  I tried to watch them do this to 3 of my bikes, but eventually I just had to leave.  I couldn't take it.  That is NOT the way to move a motorcycle.  Sure they were using moving blankets, but they strapped right across the gas tank!  They put a wave in both my Z1R tanks, and bent the exhaust hanger/rear peg mount on my GPZ1100.  Never again.  There are movers that specialize in bikes.  They have special pallets similar to what Nerdy described.  I have no idea where you might get one.  Google didn't turn anything up.

The best experience I had was a U-haul single motorcycle trailer.  The low height and wide ramp made it easy to roll on, and the trailer was set up with wheel chock and tie downs and in the right place.  I pulled it with my Integra (a fancy Civic), so it was a light trailer.  If there is any way you could pull a trailer, that seems like it might be the best route.  But it would have to be a big one.

I have seen used mattresses and a six horse(slant) style trailer used for old iron from auctions. A 6 horse trailer is still really long though 30 ft plus living quarters.As others have said  the horse trailer is about 10 inches off the ground, safer than 4 ft. After all these are IRON horses. Will the bikes be (dry), or have oil/fuel in them?

DoctoRot wrote:
"... One thing to note: I am not aware of any moving truck company that allows you to move a vehicle in their truck so if you go this route be aware that its probably against their policy and if you need to make an insurance claim you will bear the burden 100%."
We were not aware that rental companies had policies that discourage moving motor vehicles.  Thanks for that insight!  Another question to add to the list.  Thanks too, for the HF chock suggestion.

hardrockminer wrote:
"...Lots of low trailers around.  Horse trailers as an example."
Livestock trailers are on our radar.  Our pickup isn't rated for anything close to that tow weight.  The only thing we've towed is a single-axle enclosed trailer we've owned for 20-something years with two bikes in it.  Most livestock trailers are fifth-wheel, so we'd have to rent something like a diesel dualie to pull it & have the trailer brake & saddle hitch setup already in place.

Nerdy wrote:
"...I think being able to move the bikes in multiple directions will help you load a vehicle more efficiently. There are bike storage dollies available that allow you to have both [bike] wheels off the ground and have the bike strapped down while on the centerstand or sidestand. The dollies roll on swiveling casters so you can move them sideways, on an angle, etc. ..."
Thanks Nerdy.  Dollies are on our research list.  Making them immobile on a truck bed will be the main challenge.  See below about air bladders that might work.

DOCH wrote:
"...in the professional moving and freight industry is to strap the bike to the wall of the trailer.. ..."
Thanks for prodding our memory.
A few years ago at Bike Week, we saw a demo of large air bladders intended to stabilize and cushion bikes for transport.  Think giant balloon made from the heavy, rubberized fabric used in large passenger and whitewater inflatable rafts.  Those might be of use for protection and immobilization when strapping a bike to the side wall of an enclosure.

Shankhole wrote:
"Will the bikes be (dry), or have oil/fuel in them?"
Max of two will be wet with fuel so we can ride them if desired.  All will have motor oil in them.
When we had four Z1's plus our pair of His n' Her '93 CB750 Nighthawks, we tried keeping fresh fuel & batteries in six bikes.  Stock Nighthawks use 14A-2 batteries; only difference between them and the much more common 14LA-2 battery in a Z1 is the (+) and (-) terminals are reversed. Even though we modified the Nighthawks with longer battery cables to accept 14LA-2 batteries, it was still a struggle to keep everything fresh & ridden often enough to make it worthwhile.  That's why we mothball four Z's every year for rotation.

Overall comments:
Ramps just spook us.  We also have no assurance that assistance might be available on site, so it could just be myself and Z1BEBE doing the load/unload in some cases.  Unless a ramp is wide enough for a bike and a person on each side, a ramp is our last choice.  slmjim made a ramp from 1" plywood that is wide enough to ride a bike into our trailer under power while still being able to use both feet for balance.  Finding a ramp that wide & long enough to use on a big box truck would be OK, but storage might be an issue, and it would be heavy.

When slmjim was working in the photocopier industry. very large & heavy machines we routinely moved using a liftgate truck.  Most machines were much longer than the liftgate was wide, so they had to be rotated.  Doable.  Liftgates often change angle (level) as they move, so care must be taken that a $20,000+ high-end color machine doesn't take a dump while the liftgate was in motion.  slmjim's seen the aftermath od said dump.  Don't want that to happen to any of our bikes!

Another thing that's on our research list are GatorHide covers, if we end up using an open trailer.  GatorHide covers are very heavy, waterproof/windproof canvas-type material secured with laced webbing of parachute-type cord.  Correctly used, they fit like a glove.  A friend uses one for his bike on a rail trailer.

Thanks everyone, for the good suggestions.  Please keep 'em coming!

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

I like the 6 horse trailer idea, you save on hotel costs and hopefully can park it close to the bikes.
I would probabley  use the side stands and a lot of straps.

 

wrote:

That’s a lot of bikes!

Your options are pretty limited I think then. That trailer shows you how big they would take. You could rent a big U-Haul, that one is 26ft, but they may have air brakes and you would need that classification on your driver license.

Good luck!

JL
 

Some states do not require any such classification. I drove such a truck from South Carolina to Texas with nothing more than an motorcycle endorsement.

I have never moved that many bikes at one time.  While at university I worked 2 summers for American Van lines and did move bikes across the country a few times but no more that 2 at a time that I can recall  along with the other household  items being moved.  These were straight trucks with a high bed and the hard part was getting them up the ramp.  There were doors on both sides and the rear so some loading happened from the side. The times I drove larger trucks (cab trailer) their beds was much lower and loading was much easier.

Not sure how many times you want to move them but there are several transports (specific for bikes) out there that you might want to take a look at.  I have no idea what the cost would be, but they do provide insurance on your items being moved. 

If you use a rental truck I would suggest you place them across the bed  and strap them to the sides instead of the longer way.as you will not need as long a truck as others have mentioned. I would think something like 2 1/2 or 3 feet would be required for each bike, maybe less if you alternate which way the  front end of the bike face and how comfortable you are with your machines being close to each other.  Many of them have a less than 3 foot bed height (ground to bed)  and more that 7 1/2 across so one could get a machine in sideways with some back and forth movement. So something like a 16 to 20 foot bed should be big enough.  Some of the larger trucks are diesel and some of the larger ones have lift gates that fold under the truck. Lots of choices it would appear.

Might I suggest a 6 cow trailer