Design Philosophy Our Motorcycle Trailer Design Philosophy

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Design Philosophy

Our Motorcycle Trailer Design Philosophy - Part 1
The SST
The Design of the Ultimate Motorcycle Trailer
For years we have watched thousands of motorcycle trailers going down the road. Living in Wyoming and traveling down I-25 and across I-90 many times while the Harley Davidson Rally was taking place in Sturgis we were able to witness thousands of motorcycles pulling a wide variety of trailers. The following is a result of these years of observations and good design practices applied resulting in the Ultimate Motorcycle Trailer, the SST.

There are a number of key design parameters that we do not see being taken into consideration in the design of most motorcycle trailers. Most relate to how the dynamics of the trailer affects the motorcycle handling. Lets go through a few to explain what we have observed and our solutions to these problems.

Aerodynamic Design:
One of the most important factors for a trailer to be pulled behind a motorcycle is to provide a very aerodynamic shape that flows well in the slipstream of your bike. The slipstream is the area of air that is disturbed by your bike as it goes down the highway. If you place the bulk of the trailer body in the center of this slipstream it will not add to the aerodynamic drag of your bike and can actually reduce the aerodynamic drag by making this slipstream flow more evenly back together. You have probably experienced this if you have ever followed closely behind a semi truck and have seen how much less gas it takes for your vehicle to follow in this slipstream. You see truckers all the time following each other in sort of a chain taking advantage of this slipstream not only reducing the load on the front vehicle but all of those that follow. Ducks and geese use this aerodynamic slipstream very effectively.

The body of our transport is designed to ride in the center of this slipstream and to not affect the aerodynamic drag on your bike and may even reduce it some. A good example of this is watching racecars when they run courses like Lemans where they have added tails to the rear of their cars in a very pointed shape to take advantage of this same concept. That’s why our SST (Slip Stream Transport) is shaped pretty much like a bullet.

Keeping it out of the dirty air:
Where you position the body of the trailer is also important as you don’t want to position it in what is referred to as the “dirty” air stream. By this they mean that some of the disturbed air following your bike flows cleaner then other parts of it due to the shape of your bike and all of the things sticking out of your bike. The lower portion of this slipstream is very dirty as the tires from your bike and various things sticking out like foot pegs, etc. cause the air to not flow as smoothly as right in the center of your bike, where the air is really being pushed around your bike. We have positioned the body of our transport as close to the center of this clean airflow as possible to take maximum advantage of this. We see many small box-shaped trailers on the road, which is the equivalent of pulling a large brick down the highway.