How to Tie Down a BMW R11xxRT
To try to clarify (although these pictures might not help too much) here is where you should tie down the front:
Wrap
tie-down extensions around the fork legs right above the cross-brace.
On the RT, the fork tube above and below the cross-brace is
solid. Run the front wheel up against something solid like a wheel
chock or the trailer wall or a 2x4 nailed to the trailer floor.
You should ratchet the front
tie-downs down solidly. You don't have to worry about compressing the
suspension, as you would if you tie down to the handlebars, because
you're tieing down below the front shock. As the trailer goes over bumps,
the body of the bike will bounce up and down on the suspension over the
normal range of travel, as it's intended to do. (It is a bit scary to
look in the rear view mirror and see the bike bouncing around on a trailer, but it's more
secure to tie it down this way than to tie it down with the suspension
compressed, because the tiedowns won't work themselves loose.)
The rear tiedowns go to the black frame members highlighted below that you find when you remove the black plastic side panels.
These
tiedowns really only stabilize the back of the bike - they don't do the
brunt of the hold-down work. You can wrap soft tie-down extensions
around the frame tubes or hook the tie-downs directly to the tubes.
Run
these rear tie-downs in the opposite direction from the front ones - if
the front ones run to tie-down points in front of the bike, run these
backwards, and if the front ones run to tie-down points behind the
front fork, run the rear ones forward. The idea is that, in addition to
side-to-side bracing, you want one set of tie-downs pulling the bike
forward, and one set pulling it backward, so it won't roll. If you have
both sets of tie-downs pulling the bike in the same direction, it can
roll in that direction, the tie-downs will go slack, and it will fall
over. The tie-downs should be arranged something like this:
Once
you have the bike tied down, put it in gear so it won't roll. (Or don't
put it in gear, to avoid damage to the tranny. Don't really know on
this point. Done it both ways with success.) Remember
that it's in gear when you try to roll it off the trailer.
As
stated before, don't put it on the center stand. The stand isn't
designed for having the bike bounce on it for thousands of miles. (Same
goes for the side stand). Moreover, if the bike is on the center stand,
it's less stable than if it's on two wheels, because it can teeter fore
and aft on the center stand. Finally, unless you tie the center stand
to the front fork, there's a chance that the bike could shift forward
and roll off the center stand.
For the O-fisshul BMW tiedown procedure (which is like this one, but more expensive) see http://www.irvseaverbmw.com/jsps/BMWTiedownproceduregeneral.pdf
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