I'd been riding around the USA, Canada, and Baja for years camping off my street motorcycle. In all those places I saw dirt roads and trails that invited me with that come hither finger to explore the mystery behind those road.

I resisted most of the time, but you just can't deny dirt roads in Baja. I was forced the take my 700lb loaded street bike on some sketchy Baja roads and trails.

In fact, a riding partner who was riding a motorcycle just like mine knocked a hole in his oil pan when we were riding to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska on a Dirt Haul road. We were 400 miles from help, and he decided to leave his bike where it broke.

Having to leave a bike showed me the value of have a dirt bike with me to ride on those roads. To that end I thought about building a trailer to haul my dualsport bike with me.

I wanted something kind of quick to build so that I could test drive it down the road before I spent a lot of time or money building the trailer.

I had a lot of junk bikes like my street bike laying around. I figured to use 2 swingarms with their wheels/tires for the running gear. I reasons also that I couyld use the disk brakes as well, if it ever came to needing that. That also meant that I had spare tires and some other parts that I could use on my tow bike if it needed them.

That was about it. With a standard trailer coupler bolted to the tongue and a cheap set of Taillights, I only had 150 bucks in the project. I didn't like that the coupler wouldn't cock to the side more than about 30%, in case of a parking lot drop or worse, a getoff...but this was just a proof of concept build at this point.

Everything came together and the test ride proved worthy. I made plans for a trip to Death Valley. The tow up there was great. The only set back was that while dualsporting up there I fell off and broke my right ankle clean in two. That was a set back of the worst kind. I though my life was over.

But it wasn't over at all. The 8 weeks healing time went by quicker than snot though a tin horn. Soon I went to Colorado with the 2 motorcycles. The trailer was a winner. The 30* of lean was never a problem. I still didn't like it though. One time a few miles east of Salida Co in the twisties, I came around a corner to find traffic stopped in front of me. I had to avoid the car by pulling off to the side. My towbike's brakes weren't adequate in an emergency situation. Immediately, I began to scheme on how to put brakes on the trailer. I reasoned that I could use the disk brakes that came with the 2 swing arms that I used on the trailer and that I could actuate them with a front brake mastercylinder for a bike like my street bike because that bike had dual calipers and disk brakes.

The trick would be, how to opperate the mastercylinder with the motion of the trailer. I was talking 'surge brake'. Hummmmm.... I would need a colapsing trailer tongue.

Some more hemming and hawing got me to thinking about using a fork leg as a trailer tongue. It seems like a fork leg was everything I needed to pull that off, and I had serveral to choose from.

I had to shorten the fork tube and put a spring down inside the slider part so that the slider had a spring in both direction. Of course, there's no fluid in the fork leg any more as it is now only a spring loaded trailer tongue with a trailer coupler bolted to the slider and the trailer bolted to the fork tube. You'll notice that now the trailer coupling will rotate a full revolution if ever necessary. I like that

So I had the basics of a surge brake. I only had to bolt the master cylinder to the trailer tongue and make the slider actuate it...and hook the hydalics to each wheel cylinger. I was able to join the front hydralic brake lines to a longer hydraulic cluch line from salvaged from bike scraps like my bike. That was long enough to get all the way to the calipers.

Side view

So far, I was still working on the original 150 dollar outlay. Before the brakes, I'd ridden with the trailer about 4000 miles. I put another 15000 miles on the trailer after the brakes were added. The brakes made pulling that much weight safe.

Overlooking Borrego Springs in SoCal

I had a 10 year life of pulling my DR350 dualsport bike with me in the US. Most of it was rewarding. I once pulled it over to a friends house in Westcliffe Co. I left the street bike there and rode the Dualsport to Antelope Wells on the New Mexican southern border, then I rode dirt roads along the Continental Divide to Canada. After that I reunited with my street bike and towed my bike back the 1000 miles home to San Diego Ca in less than 24hrs. I may be the only rider who ever did a Saddlesore 1000 pulling a 500 lb trailer.

One of my favorite sayings is, "Everyone is crazy about something". It is hard to justify riding a 1000 miles in a day is you/re not crazy.

Trailer Hitch

If you have a trailer, you're going to need a hitch for your motorcycle. There are 2 important things that need to be considered when building a hitch. They have to be strong but not too strong. You want the hitch to bend before the motorcycle frame bends, and you definitely want the hitch to bend and not break. Next, you don't want the hitch to be in the way of changing the rear tire.

I used 1.5 X .250 flat bar instead of a tubing because a flat bar will bend easier. I used an easily removeable rear bar so that the tire will come out during a tire change. I also used 2 upright suports on each side because if one came loose there was still the other upright to hold the hitch to the bike.

I did have a getoff while using the trailer, and the hitch did bend a little while the bike frame survived. I left home early one morning on my way to Alpine Az.

The sun came up as I rode through the San Siego mountains. A sunrise on a road trip is always very inspirational.

The getoff happened on hwy 78 about 35 miles west of Blythe. I hit something with my left trailer tire and that threw the trailer sideways which pulled my motorcycle over on its side and then we all slid to a stop from about 35 or 40 mph. It was a great test for the trailer and hitch engineering....but a lousy test of my attention span.

The accident scene was a bit chaotic....

The dualsport bike had came off the trailer. I'd already picked up both bikes. The trailer's left wheel was bent caddywampus.

Some Airforce guys from a nearby base stopped and helped with the bike lifting. One of them said that I sould go get some stitches in my elbow where I could see the bone through a 3/8" hole in the skin. Other than that tiny hole, I wasn't hurt. A paper towel on the elbow stopped the bleeding.

An AAA tow truck came and picked me up and took me and my junk to Steve Horvath's house in Westmorland about 65 miles back toward home. That left me 125 miles away from home. Now I was in Steve's back yard.

There was some other bike damage.

A better picture of that trailer wheel...

I Duck Taped all the headlights and front bike damage so that the bike would make it back home. Steve called a mobil welder friend of his who brought his repair truck over and he straightened out that trailer wheel. The wheel wasn't perfect but it would get me home. I was ready to ride home after 2 days with Steve.

It took me a couple months to get the motorcycle and Trailer back to opperational condition. That was quite a lesson in 'Those things that don't kill you only make you stronger'.