Can Your Tailgate Hold Your Motorcycle? How to Check Before You Load

Before a motorcycle ever reaches your truck bed, its entire weight passes across the tailgate. It is the single most loaded, least understood component in the whole operation — and the one riders check least.

This guide will not give you a table of numbers per truck model, and you should be suspicious of any page that does. Ratings change by model year, by trim, by market, and by whether the gate is cable-supported or torsion-supported. A number you found on a forum is not a number you should trust with a €20,000 motorcycle.

Instead, here is how to find your number, and what to do with it.

Where the real figure lives

1. The owner's manual. Look for "tailgate load capacity" or "tailgate load limit". This is the authoritative source. It is often buried in the towing or payload section rather than the specifications.
2. The dealer's parts or service desk. They can look up the rating for your exact VIN. This takes one phone call and it is free.
3. The manufacturer's technical helpline. Slower, but definitive, and worth it if you are close to the limit.

If none of those give you a number, treat that as a warning rather than a green light. Manufacturers who rate a tailgate for heavy loads generally say so.

Why the rating is not the whole story

Even when you have the number, it usually describes a static, evenly distributed load — the kind you get from sitting on the gate or resting a load across it. A motorcycle is neither of those things:

• Point loading. The bike's mass goes through a tyre contact patch about the size of your hand. A gate rated for 300 kg spread across its width is not necessarily a gate rated for 300 kg through 100 cm².
• Dynamic loading. A bike rolling across a gate has suspension. It bounces. Peak force during loading can meaningfully exceed the bike's static weight.
• Combined load. If you use a loading system, add its weight. A 45 kg ramp plus a 250 kg bike is 295 kg through that gate — not 250.
• The hinge and the cables. On cable-supported tailgates the cables and their anchor points are usually the limiting component, not the gate panel itself. They are also the part that fatigues.

What to do if your number is marginal

"Marginal" means your combined load is above roughly 70% of the rated figure. In that case you have three good options:

1. Fit a tailgate support bar

A vertical strut that transfers load from the gate to the ground or the bumper. Cheap, effective, and completely reversible. Several manufacturers make them; they are the standard answer for anyone loading heavy through a gate.

2. Bridge the gate entirely

A roll plate or bridge plate spans from the ramp to the bed floor, carrying the load across the bed lip and the frame rails rather than through the middle of the gate panel. This is the structurally correct answer: it takes the gate out of the load path instead of reinforcing it.

3. Load with the gate down and unloaded

Some loading systems are designed so the ramp's pivot axle sits on the bed lip, not the gate. The gate is then along for the ride rather than carrying anything. If you are near your limit, this is worth engineering around deliberately.

Vans and trailers: the same question, different answer

Vans have no tailgate — the load goes straight onto the cargo floor, which is generally far stronger. The constraint moves to the payload of the vehicle: bike + system + tools + fuel + you must stay under the gross vehicle weight rating. Check the plate on the B-pillar.

Trailers are the easiest case. Deck heights of 30–40 cm mean shallow ramp angles and no gate in the load path at all. If your tailgate rating is genuinely too low and you cannot bridge it, a trailer is not a defeat — it is the right tool.

Three minutes that are worth it

Find the manual. Find the number. Add up your real combined load. If the margin is thin, spend €150 on a support bar or a bridge plate.

A tailgate failing under load does not fail gently. It fails with a motorcycle on it.