A friend of mine was loading his FLHR Road King® onto a trailer for a long trip. He is “vertically challenged” and his Road King is necessarily lowered. A lowered motorcycle and a motorcycle trailer with a short (read: steep) ramp is not a good combination when you are trying to load your motorcycle by yourself.

So, he starts the bike up, and takes a running start at the trailer. He makes his way up the ramp until the front tire clears the top, and starts to level out in the trailer. This makes the frame closer to the point where the ramp connects to the trailer. The frame bottoms out on the trailer at the same time the jiffy stand spring catches the trailer.

I wish I had a picture of a normal spring. Let’s just say it’s typically shorter than this. This one measures a full 10″. I think normal would be about 3″.

He left the bike on the trailer, supported by the frame and the now-loose jiffy stand. I brought him a new spring, and we quickly installed it. We found a better place to load the trailer and loaded him up without further incident. I got to keep the spring for my efforts.