There are not too many things more frustrating than arriving at your destination and opening up your toyhauler door only to be greeted by the thick, pungent odor of gasoline. Things go from bad to worse when you find your motorcycles on their sides having shaken loose, still leaking fuel on your trailer floor, and then you notice a handlebar has worn a hole in your fold-up couch. After living through that episode . . . Again, I was bound and determined to find a solution that would allow me to load bikes in my toyhauler and not worry about them staying in place. Moreover, with the price of fuel these days, we find ourselves carpooling to ride destinations more and more often, so I needed something that would allow loading multiple bikes in the hauler securely. I would also need a system that would accommodate a full-dress Harley Davidson.
I had so far resisted going with any type of aftermarket motorcycle restraint system because I wanted to avoid drilling holes into my hauler floor and I didn’t want to have any type of connection device left on the floor to trip over once the bikes were unloaded. The latest episode however convinced me that a solution must be found. A quick Google search gave me several options to peruse and one system in particular really caught my eye. Scott Corgiat and his company BOLT IT ON offered a motorcycle restraint system that might possibly meet every one of my needs. A quick phone call to Scott and discussion about which rack application would work best for me and a Bolt It On rack system was headed my way. UPS arrived two days later with 2 packages for me to unpack and 15 minutes later the rack was assembled and securely mounted to my toyhauler floor ready to go. Simply amazing!
No hand tools or drilling required, the rack is assembled by sliding the desired combination of wheel chocks and tie-down loops onto the main bar and locking them into place through the use of a very slick spring-loaded locking pin device. The main bar has holes drilled all along the top and you simply pull up on the locking pin knob, slide the chock or tie-down loop to the desired location on the bar, aligning the pin with one of the holes and release the knob, allowing the pin to lock the chock or tie-down into place. The chocks also have tie-down loops designed into them, so you have plenty of places to anchor down your bikes, ice chests, gas cans, or a combination of all the above. Once I had the bar configured the way I wanted with chocks and tie down loops in position, I slid the two main triangular support legs that also used the spring-loaded pin onto each end of the bar and locked them in place.
Finally, I secured the rack to the toyhauler floor by looping the two provided J bolts through two existing eye bolts in my hauler floor and cinching the entire rack down with the ergonomic knob on each J bolt. The wide base of the support legs coupled with the J bolt attachments really provide a very stable platform for securing your cargo.
I had an off-road motorcycle event to attend, so my first configuration would require a setup for three full- size dirt bikes. One of the available chocks has a ten-inch offset so that the middle of the three loaded bikes would not tangle handlebars with the other two bikes--a very good idea. Loading the bikes and gas cans and tying them down was a piece of cake and they were all very securely locked into place.
Another great innovation with the Bolt It On system is that it can be secured to the center of your hauler’s floor and chocks can be secured in both directions. I also ordered the wide-tire chock that would accommodate a big Harley cruiser as well as a sport-bike chock. It took me five minutes to break down the rack system and have the wide-tire chock locked in place and ready to go.
The fit and finish of all the pieces were excellent throughout, Eleven-gauge, cold-rolled steel, coated in a very nice black wrinkle powdercoat. The racks come in various widths, from 67 inches to 95 inches and can be used in toyhaulers, enclosed trailers as well as flatbed trailers. A version for vans and pickup beds is going to be released soon, as well.
If you have a custom application in mind, give Scott a call. All in all, I could not be happier with the Bolt It On rack system. It’s very innovative, simple to use, really versatile and build quality is top-notch. Check them out at www.boltiton.com or call them directly 805-975-6820.
-Bob Balunda
