MotoBikeJack | Gear Review

MotoBikeJack bike jack
The MotoBikeJack, which packs down into a bag measuring roughly five inches in diameter by 15 inches long, will jack up bikes weighing up to 1,000 pounds.

It may be safe to say that most (if not all) riders have, at one time or another, dropped a bike. After all, a motorcycle’s natural resting position is lying on its side. I’m not talking about crashing, but just your foot slipping out when you come to a stop. It happens, even in the privacy of your own garage. Then the bike has to be put back on its wheels, and it might well be too heavy for a one-person pick up–depending on the person, of course. It’s not bad when you’re riding with a group, except for the embarrassment, or when a pickup with two construction workers stops to help, but if it’s just you….

MotoBikeJack to the rescue. This lifting device weighs a mere eight pounds and comes in four pieces. The base is five inches square, big enough to support it if the bike is on soft ground. Three steel shafts fit into the base, giving a height of more than 30 inches, and the ratchet at the top holds 40 inches of webbed strap, with a vinyl-covered hook at the end. Hook entry is 1.25 inches wide. All this rolls into a storage bag, which ends up some 15 inches long, and roughly five inches in diameter.

MotoBikeJack bike jack
The jack weighs eight pounds and comes in four pieces: three steel shafts with a base and a ratchet at the top.

Bike is on its side. We presume you have not carried the jack in a clamshell saddlebag that is now lying face-down on the ground. Assemble the four parts, pull the strap out from the ratchet, hook it to some secure place, like the frame or footpeg, and then place the assembly at mid-bike, touching the saddle. It’s best to inspect your bike when you first receive the MBJ to figure out where, on both sides, is the best place to hook the hook. Remember, if your frame section is 1.5 inches wide, the hook won’t fit.

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Then ratchet away. Wait! Make sure the bike is in gear, or use the included hook-and-loop strip to secure the front brake. You don’t want it rolling.

As you ratchet, the bike will lift and the jack assembly will lean into the saddle, with the baseplate beginning to tilt up. Worry not, this is how it is supposed to work, and you can brace the plate with your foot. To protect the saddle put the empty storage bag between the strap and the saddle. Ray, the designer of this jack, says it has a 1,000-pound capacity.

MotoBikeJack bike jack
Brace the plate with your foot and ratchet away!

Ratcheting away, the bike will rise to a full 90 degrees standing, but it’s best to stop a few degrees short of that, allowing you to get a leg over the saddle and get the kickstand down. If the bike fell on the right side, do put the kickstand down before you start.

There are hundreds of different scenarios to contemplate, whether the bike has fallen over on pavement, or flat ground, or a rutted dirt road or on a slope–and is it lying downhill or uphill? You might have to get creative. I tested the MBJ by picking up my 500-pound Suzuki V-Strom twice, then a kindly neighbor laid his 650-pound Harley Low Rider flat on a bit of grass; it was a crawl to get the hook in place using the rear peg. Finally a friend offered to drop his 800-pound Gold Wing 1800 on his lawn. All came up easily.

The website says the price for the MotoBikeJack is $216, plus shipping. Once you buy this jack and carry it wherever you might go, fate might well step in to make sure you never have to use it. 

For more information, visit motobikejack.com.

6 COMMENTS

  1. Three bikes ago (I’ve had many, many bikes), I had a low speed tip over in a gravel covered alley, on a Honda ST1300. Luckily I was able to get the bike upright using a technique that I learned. Many years before that, I had a kickstand that failed to lock down on an HD Sportster. When I tried to lift the bike up I literally broke my back, ending with a compression fracture of a lumbar vertebrae, it was so painful all I could do was lie there in the parking lot until a co-worker pulled in. If I had been carrying a MotoBikeJack I wouldn’t have broken my back, which forced me to transfer away from the job I loved as a telephone lineman, taking an engineering job inside.

  2. I bought the jack a few weeks back. While the jack might be great, the customer service is non-existent. I have emailed twice without a reply. There doesn’t seem to be a telephone number.

  3. I had a very minor issue with the footplate and they returned my email is less than an hour. A half hour later they confirmed a new eplacement base was being sent to me. GREAT customer service!.

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