How to Secure Items in Your RV Toy Hauler

The advantage of a toy hauler is you get to bring your toys. We're going to take this model here and put in a motorcycle and an ATV, and show you how to properly secure those when they're going down the road. Now, the first thing we did- Doug had a little tip. He brought the front end up about two to three inches above level because that brings this back end down, and it reduces the incline when you're bringing that unit up. So we don't have as much of a climb to get in. It also helps greatly when coming back out, because sometimes even if this is dry, it's not wet out there, when you're backing that motorcycle out, just the brakes alone aren't going to secure it. It could slide right down. So he literally starts the vehicle up, the motorcycle, puts it in gear, and rides that a little bit to help him get down and not have to rely on the brakes or skid back down. So you'll need to get one of these. This is a tie down strap. It usually does not come with the toy hauler. And all we're going to do is put this around the handles, down on towards the bottom of it, and that's going to secure. . . and that's what we're going to connect to our base plates down here. So, first thing we're going to do is gonna have Doug start up his a wonderful motorcycle here, and we'll bring it in and show you how to hook it up. I'm going to give Doug the strap. And one of the things you'll notice when he came in- he came in at a pretty good speed, and he was saying that it's better to go up as fast as you feel comfortable with, because your momentum's going forward and you're not fighting side to side as much. Plus, you don't want to get stuck right in the middle and have to spin out the tire. So, go as fast as you feel comfortable with and stay in control. Now I'm going to have him put that strap on the handlebars. And we got one on each side. And you're going to tether that down with your ratchets? Yep. Okay. And so you can see these actually have a little safety pin, spring-loaded, that helps hold it into place down there. And it just a typical ratcheting type. These obviously came from Harley Davidson? Yep. You wouldn't dare put a Honda set on this, right? No. Okay. Just making sure. So now you've got one on each side of these. You don't put the kickstand down or the under jack, or anything like that? No, you don't need to. once you run into your cradle, it'll hold your bike. And then once you strap it down, it's not going anywhere. So you don't have to worry about the kickstand. If you do go over on the kickstand, you're already against the wall anyway, so you kind of defeated the purpose of it. Good, okay. Now you're going to do the back here in just a little bit, but we're going to bring up the ATV first. Yes. All right, I'll stand on this end. Okay. So once you got it in, you've got these straps you're using, correct? Yes. So with an ATV, you're just going to hook it up to. . . I'm going to hook it up to- they always have a strap down here that you can put your winch cable on. So I unhook my winch cable since I'm not using it, and I hook into that, 'cause that's what's tied right to the frame. And I want to make sure my four wheeler's back a little bit. So I'm pulling it forward instead of just pulling it sideways; that'll give me more stability going down the road. These you don't have to over crank too tight, just for the fact that when you strap the back, you're going to pull it backwards also. Okay, good. And now typically, you would have that slide room out when you were hauling and unhooking and stuff, so you could get out this door, but for our purposes here, we're gonna to have to crawl out this way. Yes. You don't want me to crawling out this way? No. Okay. Nowhere near the bike. We'll go that way. Okay. We've already strapped down the front end. We're going to strap the back end so that they don't bounce around on the backside of here. So, in the same type of straps: ratchet down straps. Now, the motorcycle has a hitch on that one, so he can go right around that. If you don't have that on the back of your bike, you're going to have to go through the tire, and back over to the other tie down, just to get it nice and tight. Now while he's doing this, you'll notice that we've got some two by eights along the side here. Doug puts those in. He uses them to level the coach underneath the wheels in here, but they also act as dual purpose, because he puts it on the side here in case this moves any, we don't have it rubbing up against the side of the unit. So now once you got it down like this, the last thing is: put the coolers in- Put the coolers in? And we'll put the beavertail up. And that's how easy it is to properly connect your toys in your toy hauler.