ATV Ladder-Ramp Saves Opening Gates

ATV Ladder-Ramp Saves Opening Gates FENCING Gates 23-6-2 George Rothweiler uses an ATV to check his buffalo herd, but grew tired of always having to stop to open and close the gate. So he came up with a way to simply drive up and over the fence. The Calahoo, Alberta man calls his invention a "quad ramp". It looks like a rounded ladder that starts on the ground a few feet away from one side of the fence and ends on the ground a few feet away from the other side. Rothweiler welded rungs made out of 3 1/2-in. angle iron between the two side pieces, placing them 6 in. apart so the ATV's wheels could walk over them. On a swivel at the side of the ramp, he also installed a barrier bar made from 1 1/2-in. steel. The bar can be swung across the ramp and padlocked in place to limit access to trespassers when Rothweiler isn't using the unit for an extended period. "My quad is only a two-wheel-drive, so I take just a little run at it when I drive over the ramp to get across the fence. A four-wheel-drive quad would have no trouble at all with traction," he says. Rothweiler's wife, Mary, isn't brave enough to drive the quad over the ramp herself, saying the steepness scares her, but George has never had a problem. "I've never fallen off the ramp yet," George says. "I guess a person could have an accident, but then you can also have an accident driving a car down the highway." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, George Rothweiler, Box 58, Calahoo, Alberta, Canada T0G 0J0 (ph 780 967-5674).

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