Tyre Down: a smarter, more secure alternative to motorcycle tie-downs

07:00 April 22, 2005 PDT

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Anybody who has ever transported motorcycles knows the problem. The traditional tie-downs used to secure motorcycles on a trailer are a pain-in-the-bum. To make the bikes secure, you need to compress the forks to such an extent that you’re forever damaging the fork seals and the system is far from foolproof as many an expensive toy has jumped off a trailer with no prompting. It was a major problem awaiting a solution and we can honestly say we have seen the solution. Hallelujah brothers and sisters, let us present the TYRE DOWN.

The Tyre Down is a unique system for securing motorcycles during transportation and was invented by two partners in a small engineering business in Australia. Rob Purcell and partner Rene van Keeken decided it was time to build a new motorcycle trailer but they wanted to get away from the traditional system.

“We were sick of the current system and we applied a bit of thought to how we could do it differently,” said Purcell. “There was a bit of trial and error but pretty soon we had a significantly better system for transporting our dirt bikes.”

“When other people started asking us for them we realised that there was a need in the marketplace and it started from there,” he said. “We developed a road bike version on request but we always thought the dirt bike version would be the most popular because you have to trailer your dirt bike and you don’t have to trailer your roadbike. But we were wrong. The roadbike version has proven very popular and makes up the vast majority of our sales now.”

“I think people just got sick of popping fork seals,” Purcell told Gizmag.

“When I’m transporting my Yamaha R1 I just put the rear Tyre Down on and a strap to stop front wheel bouncing and it’s as secure as you like.”

Tyre Down was recently launched in Australia and the US and the company is currently seeking distribution partners in all export markets.

The Tyre Down system sells for US$70 for the trail version and US$85 for the road version.