When it comes to a dirt bike trailer, there is a wide range of options and types. You have the budget end to the most expensive end, and you have an open dirt bike trailer to an enclosed trailer. Plus everything in between.
In this post, I’m going to cover the most common types of dirt bike trailers and what is best for you. I’ll also update you on my dirt bike trailer that I’m building.
Slotted/Open Dirt Bike Trailer
“Slotted/Open Dirt Bike Trailer” likely isn’t the “official” name for this type of trailer, but we think it’s the best way to describe it and what we think of when we see these trailers. It also reminds us of a jet ski trailer. They look similar.
It’s also commonly used for motorcycles ridden on the street.
A slotted dirt bike trailer is very similar to an open flatbed trailer, but rather than being fully solid all the way across, it just has a number of slots for the bikes. The image below has three slots, but these trailers can really have as many as you can fit within the legal size limits of the road.
We typically see them range from one to four slots.
One of the great things about using this type of trailer as a dirt bike trailer is that they’re usually quite light, meaning you can tow them with a lot of different vehicles, even small ones. We’ve seen vehicles from minivans to coupe BMWs towing these trailers.
The weight of these trailers is also beneficial because it helps with your vehicle’s MPGs (it’s cheaper to tow!).
Because these trailers are relatively simple, they’re also quite affordable. The one below is one of the nicer ones we’ve seen, but you can get them used and/or as a basic model for a pretty low price.
If you don’t need many bells and whistles, or you’re looking to tow your bikes on a budget, this could be a good option for you.
Open Flatbed Trailer
An open flatbed trailer might be considered a small step up from the slotted/open dirt bike trailer we just looked at, but they’re quite similar.
The biggest difference here is that instead of there being slots for the dirt bikes to go in, the trailer has a full floor all the way across. This has its pros and cons.
The pros are that you have a lot more usable space and room to tie things down, not just dirt bikes. You can also build many customizations into/onto your flatbed trailer, such as a storage box upfront, side railings, and more.
One of the major cons, though, is that flatbed trailers don’t often have something for the front tire of the dirt bikes to be pushed up against when tying them down. Of course, you can build this into/onto your flatbed trailer, but the slotted trailer in the image above has the front raised in the slots for the front wheel to be tied down against.
Enclosed Dirt Bike Trailer
The next step up from the open flatbed dirt bike trailer is an enclosed dirt bike trailer. The slotted and open flatbed trailers don’t have much variety. There are some, specifically in size and length, but generally speaking, they are all quite similar.
When it comes to enclosed dirt bike trailers, there is a lot more variability, such as steel or aluminum, windows or no windows, barn-style doors or a gate, how built out the inside is, and of course, size (height, width, and length).
On one end, you have a more basic type of enclosed dirt bike trailer, which is typically going to be a small 4′ x 10′ or 6′ x 10′ or 6′ x 12′ steel trailer with no windows.
On the other end, you can have an enclosed dirt bike trailer that is 8′ x 24′ all-aluminum with windows and a fully built-out interior with work benches, storage, and more.
Ultimate MX Hauler
What makes for the ultimate MX hauler? Well, it depends.
If money is no object for you, the rig that professional race teams have is the ultimate MX hauler. Our personal favorite is that from Star Racing Yamaha Team. Check it out below.
While that rig is amazing, the reality is that that’s not possible for most people. For most people, the ultimate MX hauler is one that safely and consistently gets them out riding. With us, we really look for a dirt bike trailer that will us easy access to anything we might need.
Here’s an example: we had a small 6′ x ’12 enclosed dirt bike trailer and it drove us crazy because we had too much stuff in it. It was always packed, we couldn’t get to our spare parts or toolbox without moving a bunch of stuff.
While that situation was frustrating, it really helped define what our ultimate MX hauler would be: a trailer that would have enough space for us to move around and get to our spare parts and tools easily.
For us, that looks like a 7.5′ x 16′ enclosed trailer with a 2′ v-nose and the interior built-out with cabinets, shelves, and other storage items. Check out my dirt trailer build towards the bottom of this article.
Hitch Carrier
Alright, I admit it. This is necessarily a dirt bike trailer, and it’s certainly not the ultimate MX hauler, but it is a way that you can haul your dirt bike to where it needs to go, so we thought we’d include it here.
A hitch carrier is a mount (also known as a dirt bike rack or dirt bike tow hitch) that goes in a vehicle’s hitch that allows for a dirt bike, or dirt bikes, to be placed on top of it, tied down, and hauled. Typically, these are single or double slots, as it’s difficult to engineer these mounts to hold much more than that with this type of design.
To us, the best dirt bike trailer is the one that gets you out riding and enjoying your favorite sport.
My Dirt Bike Trailer Build
The first two pictures below are of my brand new 2022 enclosed trailer. It’s an EZ Hauler that’s 7.5′ wide by 16′ long with a 2′ v-nose.
You can see in the image above and below that this enclosed trailer came raw inside — the walls and floor were not painted when I got it.
Since I bought this trailer to use to haul my dirt bikes, I wanted to paint the walls and the floors to help preserve them. On the floor, I went with heavy-duty paint that could withstand fluids (water, oil, gas, etc.). I went back and forth for quite a while on whether or not I wanted to do an epoxy floor or just heavy-duty paint.
I ended up choosing paint mainly because I wanted to be able to touch it up easily if needed. You can see in the image below that there is already a bit of oil or gas on the floor from one of the dirt bikes that I had in it. I cleaned this off the floor and then painted over it so this wouldn’t happen again.
The walls in the image below were painted white by the gentleman that I use to paint my house.
I should have used the same guy to paint the floors as I did to paint the walls, but regrettably, I decided to do it myself. I taped off all the aluminum parts that could get paint on them, then started cutting it in.
The picture below isn’t the best quality since it was taken at night and the paint was still wet, but this was when the first coat of paint was just finished up.
After the floor was done being painted, I got to work on building out the bench that I wanted to put in the front of the dirt bike trailer in the V nose. I chose to buy a Craftsman toolbox from Lowes and use that as the centerpiece of the bench and build the rest of it around the toolbox.
Once the bench was done being built, I painted it black to match the floors.
The image below isn’t my trailer — it’s one I found online, but it shows how you can put a mini-split unit into a v-nose dirt bike trailer. I had never really considered putting a mini split into a cargo trailer until I saw this picture.
I’ve started the mini split install on my trailer. The picture below shows my mini split unit on the tongue of my dirt bike trailer.
Unfortunately, the tongue on my trailer is much, much shorter than the one in the picture above, which is making it a bit more difficult than it could be otherwise.
Since the tongue is so short, the mini split unit doesn’t fit on the tongue and allow for the crank to still spin. That’s a problem.
You can see I had to remove the crank to fit the mini split unit on the tongue to take measurements.
I’ve decided to build a steel platform out of angle iron that is about 18 inches above the tongue. This will allow for the OEM crank to stay where it is and work normally.
