Porteos Self-Loading Motorcycle Ramp Launches Crowdfunding

Successfully using motorcycle ramps to wheel your baby into and out of a truck, van, or trailer can be a pain. That goes double if you’re trying to do it on your own. A French company called Porteos aims to make it easier for everyone.

Load 'Em Up:

How To Load a Motorcycle into a Pickup Truck

Porteos says it has developed a self-loading telescopic motorcycle ramp that can handle machines up to 880 pounds in weight, and load everything in and out securely with its power tilt feature. Once you load your bike into the adaptable wheel chock, the loading system is operated using your cordless drill to power a wormdrive mechanism.

The company says it has been selling ramps made of steel in Europe for some time, but the ones it wants to launch in the US will be made of 6061 T6 aerospace-grade aluminum. It has launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to get its US operations off the ground. 

At a buy-in of $1,422 for a ramp (before shipping, which is additional), it’s certainly not cheap. The company is also offering a number of accessories to make loading different types of bikes, three-wheelers, and quads easy to do without requiring you to purchase an entirely different ramp for each type of vehicle. These range in price from $131 for a main rail extender to $440 each for either a snowmobile kit or a cargo and buggy loader. All items are currently estimated to ship in February of 2020. 

screenshot from the Porteos website, taken 11/12/19

Porteos also suggests that this ramp can do double duty as an easy way to raise your bike up for maintenance and repairs, and specifically suggests doing oil changes on it. That seems… ill-advised. I can see where it could be handy for certain tasks, but definitely not that one. I get that the company wants to take the sting out of the pricing, but has the person who made that suggestion ever actually changed oil? You have to wonder. 

Anyway, I also can’t seem to locate any reviews of the previous, heavier steel ramps online. The company’s Facebook page has existed since April 30, 2019, and has exactly one review from September 2019 that simply offers the supremely nonspecific praise, “great easy to use products.” If anyone reading this has experienced these older ramps, please let us know how you liked them. 

Source: YouTube, Porteos, IndieGoGo