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Black Widow Trailerable Full Dresser Motorcycle Cover Review

Black Widow Trailerable Full Dresser Motorcycle Cover Review

Today’s article and video will be a review of the Black Widow Trailerable Full Dresser Motorcycle Cover.

I personally love the idea of a trailerable motorcycle cover because where I live, we have bad weather half the year, and we use a lot of salt on the roads. If you tow motorcycles on an open trailer or truck bed, your motorcycle can get pretty dirty from salt and spray and dirt.

Not only will all that salt and dirt make a mess of your motorcycle, it’ll also take a ton of time to clean.

When I first heard about this product, I thought, “Finally!” But I still had so many questions, and I’m sure if you’re reading this and in the market for a motorcycle cover you can use on a truck or on a trailer, you probably have some questions too.

In this review we’re going to cover the following questions:

  • What’s in the box? (what exactly am I getting, what’s it made of)
  • How does it work? (a normal motorcycle cover will just fly off, what makes this special)
  • How well does it actually work? (we’re going to put it to the test on a truck made especially for towing motorcycles)
  • Will it work with smaller motorcycles? (the title says it’s made for “full dressers” but what happens if your motorcycle isn’t that big?)

watch this video

Watch this video!

What’s in the box?

What’s in the box, what exactly am I getting, what’s it made of, and how will it feel like? When the box arrived at my door, I had only a vague idea based on the information on DiscountRamps’ website.

The website said there would be a cover made from 407g cold-resistant polyester fabric, with a soft micro-fleece lined interior to protect my motorcycle. It also said there would be a storage bag. All of that was true.

There were a few other features that were mentioned that I appreciated as well. There are high-visibility yellow markers in each other, minimal branding, four quick-release 2″ thick straps to cinch the cover around the motorcycle and avoid it flying off. They even gave you 2 extra sets of quick-release clips just in case yours get damaged.

I missed one feature though! The Black Widow Trailerable Motorcycle Cover comes with four velcro slits allowing you to pass your straps through the cover to help keep everything as streamline as possible. Admittedly I noticed the velcro slits only after already strapping down my motorcycle, but I can tell you that they aren’t necessary for proper function, but more like a nice to have feature.

How does it work?

A normal motorcycle cover would just fly flap around on the highway and risk damaging your motorcycle, or worse, fly off completely and risk causing an accident for traffic behind you. How does a trailerable motorcycle cover work to avoid this?

loading motorcycle on platform

The first thing you’ll want to do is take note of the “FRONT” tag stitched into the front of the cover. Finding this will make putting on your cover much easier. If you’ll be using soft loops (I recommend these ones) to avoid scratching your motorcycle or pulling on any cables with your ratchet straps you’ll want to put those on first, and then put the motorcycle cover on.

Putting the trailerable motorcycle cover on

Once the cover is on you can go ahead and pull the soft loops through the included four slits in the cover to connect them to your ratchet straps and tie down the motorcycle. A good motorcycle wheel chock makes the job easy by holding the motorcycle upright for you while you do the work. I like to strap the kickstand side first, with the kickstand in the down position, just in case the motorcycle starts to tip.

Once the motorcycle is secured you can begin securing the the cover in place. The cover comes with a handful of straps which you wrap all the way around the motorcycle and then buckling into the built-in quick-connects. It’s an easy process: wrap around, clip it in, tighten it up. Repeat for every strap.

How well does it actually work?

At this point I tried tugging and pulling on the cover, and it was immediately clear to me that this cover was not going anywhere. The real test however, would be taking it for a drive on the highway, and for that I used my pick-up truck specially equipped with a lift for carrying my motorcycles around.

The cover took up a bit more of my rearview mirror that the average motorcycle would, but not enough to cause any concern or bother me. I didn’t hear any wind buffeting on the cover or feel the truck getting pushed by cross-winds either. From a driver’s perspective, aside from slightly less visibility, the cover being on made no difference.

Towing with the motorcycle cover on

When I arrived back at home, the motorcycle had remained about 95% covered. Only the bottom 6″ of the motorcycle wheels had been exposed. This was due a “learning experience” (mistake) on my part, having forgotten to make use of the 4 velcro slits in the cover’s corners. I’m sure setting up the cover for the next trip will be an more streamlined process.

Will it work with smaller motorcycles? (the title says it’s made for “full dressers” but what happens if your motorcycle isn’t that big?)

Speaking of streamline, one major question going into the review was whether or not the Black Widow Full Dresser Trailerable Motorcycle Cover would work on motorcycles that weren’t “full dressers”. Would it work on smaller motorcycles?

For those not up on their lingo, a full dress is a big touring motorcycle with a big front fairing, big saddlebags, and a top case. Examples include the Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic and Honda GoldWing.

Towable motorcycle cover

Just to be difficult, I decided to test this cover on a more average sized motorcycle, a BMW G650GS. That’s no 1,800cc touring bike. That’s a 650cc dual sport motorcycle, with no bags, no big front fairing, and no topcase. I have to admit it, the cover did the job just fine!

Sure, a lot less material would have been more streamlined and sexy, for a more polished professional look. However, a bigger cover will work on smaller motorcycles, but a smaller cover wouldn’t work on bigger motorcycles, so maybe there is reason to the madness.

The Black Widow Full Dresser Trailerable Motorcycle Cover is a relatively new cover, so we’ll see if it becomes available in smaller sizes in the future. Even if it doesn’t, this product works just fine as it is, so I wouldn’t waste my time waiting for a smaller size that may never be made.

Final thoughts

Overall I’m very happy with this product, it’s ease of use, and it’s effectiveness. The bike remained 95% covered and protected, even without me strapping through the cover like I was supposed to.

Yes, the fit could be little smaller for smaller motorcycles, but as you guys can probably tell, I’m serious about towing motorcycles, I keep my standards high, and this is a product I wouldn’t hesitate to use on my own bikes or recommend to my friends and family.

I’ll post a link in the description box down below to where you can grab the cover from. I got it from DiscountRamps and over the years I’ve come to expect a pretty high level of quality from them and these guys never let me down.

The way I see it, this thing is built to last forever, and this is something that could save you an hour of detailing your motorcycle every year for the rest of your life. If you’ll use it even just twice it’s probably worth it.

About Adrian from YouMotorcycle

I started riding motorcycles in 2007, founded YouMotorcycle in 2009, and was working in the motorcycle industry by 2011. I've worked for some of the biggest companies in motorcycling, before going full-time self-employed in the motorcycle business in 2019. I love sharing his knowledge and passion of motorcycling with other riders to help you as best I can.

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