Quick Anchor Motorcycle Trailer Tie Down

by Rick K. for webBikeWorld

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I found an advertisement for the new Quick Anchor "movable trailer tie down" in a print magazine and it looked intriguing, so I figured we'd give them a try.

The Quick Anchor is cut from a flat sheet of 1/4" plate.  I assume that the material is stainless steel.  The product is designed to slip in between the floorboards of a flatbed motorcycle trailer and hook on to the vertical side of the 90-degree angle bar below that tyipcally serves as the cross support for the trailer floor.

The tie down straps that hold the motorcycle, ATV or other cargo can then be slipped into one of the holes in the Quick Anchor to secure the bike to the trailer.

I'll admit right up front that you'd have to go a long way to beat our current motorcycle tie down system of the Bike Grab front wheel chock and the Tyre Down rear tire holder.  This system is incredibly easy to use; the motorcycle can be secured in seconds and it puts near-zero strain on the motorcycle's suspension while holding the bike just as steady as can be.  We've trailered several motorcycles and scooters up and down the east coast using this system over a variety of terrain without a problem. 

It even held a motorcycle steady when the trailer slipped off the ball hitch, which is another embarrassing story I may own up to some day!  All I'll say about it now is thank goodness for safety chains!

I'm also going to admit that I haven't actually used the Quick Anchor to trailer a motorcycle.  Why?  First of all, the product works by slipping it through the spacing -- if there is any -- in the floorboards of the trailer.  

This assumes that 1) the trailer is indeed a flat bed; 2) the flat bed trailer has floorboards; 3) the floorboards have at least a 1/4" spacing and 4) the trailer uses 90 degree angle iron cross beam supports with one angle pointed down, perpendicular to the floorboards. 

Our Top Brand motorcycle trailer has no problem with numbers 1 and 2, but other than one spacing that is just about 1/4", it fails the test on number 3 and number 4 is problematical due to the design of the trailer. 

The instructions suggest that "if the QuickAnchor does not easily slide between the floor boards you will have to make the gap wider by shaving away some of the wood", but I wasn't too keen on the idea of hacking apart the floorboards on a search and destroy mission for the correct placement of the Quick Anchor.

Also, the front cross beam on our trailer has a tube welded to the angle just where the Quick Anchor should go, which completely prevents the device from hooking on to the support.  It can be seen in this photo:

The Quick Anchor will slip on to the bottom part of the angle seen in the photo, but the tube prevents it from fully engaging the metal on the angle.  The Quick Anchor is designed only to slip on to the side of the "L" that hangs down, perpendicular to the floorboards.  In this photo, you can see that the other side of the "L" prevents the Quick Anchor from fitting in the opposite direction.

I can understand where the Quick Anchor may come in handy as long as they will work with the particular trailer.  If the trailer is used for multiple purposes and it isn't possible or desirable to permanently mount a Bike-Grab or other type of front wheel chock, a Quick Anchor might be a good solution.

They are very easy to store under the seat, in a toolbox or behind the seat in a pickup truck.  I can understand how they would be easy to slide down and hook on to the cross support and their position can be adjusted as necessary.

The Quick Anchors have two holes drilled into the upright; the top hole I assume is used for hanging them up on a peg board for storage and the instructions recommend using the bottom hole to hook the motorcycle tie down strap.

The instructions also recommend sliding a bolt (we used a screwdriver) through the hole to hold the Quick Anchor in place so that it doesn't drop down through the floorboards as you're messing with the bike and tie down straps. 

Here's a photo of a Quick Anchor hooked on to the rear cross support of our Top Brand trailer.  It illustrates how far the hole is from the floorboard:

With no moving parts, there's not much that can go wrong with a Quick Anchor.  Ours were well made; I'm not sure how they were cut from the flat stock.  I don't think a water jet cutter was used because there are a few burrs here and there in different places on the four Quick Anchors we purchased, but overall the quality seems very good for what they are.

Conclusion
I didn't realize that the Quick Anchors would not work with our particular brand of trailer when we ordered them.  They may be very useful in some instances and perhaps our trailer is configured differently than others.  However, I think the concept for the product is sound and it's always important to understand all of the many options that exist for securing a motorcycle to a trailer.

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