About a two hour ride to Penrose, CO where there's a BLM area I like to boondock in. The ride down is mostly on Interstate 25 and the trailer was rock steady at her normal cruising speed of 60 mph, with no change when I tried 70 mph for a little bit.
So, how does it tow with both motorcycles onboard? Just fine.
Got to the Penrose BLM and went slowly on the rough and rocky road that leads to my usual campsite. Once I stopped, I noticed that Yagi was leaning towards Scarlett. Hmmm.
The starboard side (right side) ratchet strap had
broken! Looks like it was worn through by the edge
of the mount for the front fender. Dammit.
Still, while I'm not sure how long the strap had been broken, Yagi had just basically been leaning into Scarlett's chrome guard on the front fender....and the result was a small abrasion spot on the left fork tube. No big deal, and am happy that I had installed a "safety strap" that pulled Yagi towards the rear of the trailer!
I later moved the spare tire mount closer to the trailer and will use the hub as anchor points when next I load Yagi back onto the moto carrier, see how that goes. Otherwise, the straps on the wheels and left side held up just fine.
The rest of the afternoon was spent working, watching a storm come in and dump a little bit of rain on us.
The storm didn't last long but did go a long ways to cooling things down, the thermometer in the URRV registered 93°F (33.8°C) as today's high temperature! It was definitely warm.
The skies remained partly cloudy the rest of the afternoon and not too hot:
Penrose BLM must lie along some training course for local military aircraft. I saw this C-130 flying the same pattern overhead for perhaps an hour.
Later on, an Army Apache Helicopter flew overhead but I didn't get a picture of it. It also repeated a pattern about three times before flying away for good.
Tonight's sunset was "meh", but here you go.
So, a pretty successful test of the installation of the moto carrier from HF. Found nothing loose (besides the broken ratchet strap), no cracks in the metal parts and all fasteners were tight.
It was way too hot when I had the opportunity to ride either of the motorcycles, perhaps tomorrow morning before things heat up too much.
2 comments:
How far from the rail was the bottom end of the ratchet strap? If it was just on the side like it looks in the picture, the stress on the strap would be pretty high. Maybe add some outriggers or something so the lower end of the ratchet strap could be at least a foot from the rail. It would have to be pretty sturdy to support the load from the strap. Maybe the other end could be fastened to the deck of the trailer...
It wasn't very far, have moved the spare tire closer to the rail to provide a better angle. Will use the wheel's hub openings to provide anchor points for now.
Pressure was high to be sure, but the strap broke due to bad routing on my part that led to the strap experiencing rubbing against part of the mounting hardware on the front fender.
Post a Comment