Trailering the Ural home
May. 27th, 2012 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaYesterday I trailered the Ural home. It was stressful. Details behind the cut.
I stopped at the U-Haul dealer last Monday, and made an appointment to have a trailer hitch installed on the Subaru on Friday. I took the car in and dropped it off Thursday night, then walked up there on Friday after work to pick it up. It wasn't done - they were still working on it, and in the end I waited about two hours to get it. Then Saturday morning I went back to pick up the rental trailer - which I returned this morning. May I just say that five visits to the U-Haul store in one week, is way too many? Also, they need about three times as much parking lot as they have - it's pretty exciting getting in and out of there, especially while pulling a trailer.
But by a little before noon yesterday, I was on the road south. Destination, Columbus Indiana. I was there last week to look at the bike, and I-69 seemed slowwww, especially with the construction, and I got stuck in a traffic jam in Indianapolis. And now, the Indy 500 is this weekend, so it would probably be worse. I decided to take I-75 south towards Dayton, cut west on I-70 so as to leave I-75 before getting into the Dayton construction hell. And I mapped some backroads south and west to give Indianapolis a wide berth.
So as I was getting on the freeway here near Ypsi I had serious doubts as to whether this was even a good idea. The Ural forum had said that this was the smallest possible U-Haul trailer that the bike would fit in. It was an open utility trailer, 6' wide and 12' long. It had two axles and an immensely long tongue with a hydraulic trailer brake in it. It dwarfed the Subaru and boy could I feel it back there. Every bump made the whole back of the car shake. I almost turned back. But I know I am always nervous leaving on any trip, and I often feel better once I get an hour or so down the road. So, give it an hour. After an hour of familiar freeway, I felt OK, so I went on.
But still, the automatic transmission in the car was downshifting every time I went up a hill, and when I ran the AC it seemed to bog the car a little bit. So I tried to run the AC as little as possible. It was a long hot ride. The trailer had a big speed limit sign on the fender, reversed to show in my mirror. SPEED LIMIT 55 MPH. Believe me I had no trouble sticking to that rule. Everyone passed me. Even the semis. But I did OK until I crossed into Indiana on I-70. That was the busiest freeway of the trip, and the bumpiest. Yikes! I was so glad to leave I-70 for the back roads. Even though the backroads that had looked direct on the map, turned out to be twisties. Beautiful roads, but not what you want to enjoy in a Subaru pulling an overly large trailer. So what Mapquest had suggested would take 5:53 hours, took more like 7 hours. Oh well.
The trailer held the rig with about 3" to spare on each side. It's less terrifying loading a sidecar rig in a trailer, that a two-wheel bike. And I didn't have to compress the suspension - just anchor the wheels, and strap it so it can't roll back and forth. The seller (who has been marvelous to deal with and very friendly) fed me dinner again, and I was on the road home at dusk.
I decided to risk Indianapolis, rather than face the twisties in the dark and the bumps of I-70. I didn't care about the slow construction zones - I was the slow one anyway. It went just fine, with no traffic jams, and light traffic; I didn't feel like an obstruction. Mapquest's first choice had suggested I take US-24 from Fort Wayne to Maumee, and I figured the less Michigan freeway I took, the better, so I went that way. It was fine except for I-469 around Fort Wayne, which was another really bumpy stretch. Fortunately by the time I got there, it was after 2am, and I was alone on it, so I was able to drive slow in the left lane, which was smoother. US24 east of Fort Wayne had more construction, but I just took it slow. About 20 minutes south of my house, on US23, there was a dead possum in the middle of my lane, and I straddled it. Bang! Something under the car hit it. Turned out it was the trailer hitch, and it unhooked two of the three safety chains. That was very noisy but not a serious problem.
I pulled up in front of my house, just as the sun was coming up. I went to bed for a few hours, then got up and got the bike unloaded so I could take the trailer back before my 24 hours was up. I ended up having to pull into a terrible spot in the U-Haul lot, to get out of the way of the other people trying to pull in there. I was afraid I'd never get out, and I did have to wait probably half an hour, but two U-Haul guys eventually came with a special hand truck to move trailers, and untangled things enough for me to get out. The Subaru sure drives GREAT when it doesn't have a trailer attached to it!
I came home and went back to bed for another four hours. When I got up I still felt like crap, and when I weighed myself I realized why. I lost five pounds between yesterday morning and today. Probably all water. It was a long hot ride in the car.
But it's here!
I stopped at the U-Haul dealer last Monday, and made an appointment to have a trailer hitch installed on the Subaru on Friday. I took the car in and dropped it off Thursday night, then walked up there on Friday after work to pick it up. It wasn't done - they were still working on it, and in the end I waited about two hours to get it. Then Saturday morning I went back to pick up the rental trailer - which I returned this morning. May I just say that five visits to the U-Haul store in one week, is way too many? Also, they need about three times as much parking lot as they have - it's pretty exciting getting in and out of there, especially while pulling a trailer.
But by a little before noon yesterday, I was on the road south. Destination, Columbus Indiana. I was there last week to look at the bike, and I-69 seemed slowwww, especially with the construction, and I got stuck in a traffic jam in Indianapolis. And now, the Indy 500 is this weekend, so it would probably be worse. I decided to take I-75 south towards Dayton, cut west on I-70 so as to leave I-75 before getting into the Dayton construction hell. And I mapped some backroads south and west to give Indianapolis a wide berth.
So as I was getting on the freeway here near Ypsi I had serious doubts as to whether this was even a good idea. The Ural forum had said that this was the smallest possible U-Haul trailer that the bike would fit in. It was an open utility trailer, 6' wide and 12' long. It had two axles and an immensely long tongue with a hydraulic trailer brake in it. It dwarfed the Subaru and boy could I feel it back there. Every bump made the whole back of the car shake. I almost turned back. But I know I am always nervous leaving on any trip, and I often feel better once I get an hour or so down the road. So, give it an hour. After an hour of familiar freeway, I felt OK, so I went on.
But still, the automatic transmission in the car was downshifting every time I went up a hill, and when I ran the AC it seemed to bog the car a little bit. So I tried to run the AC as little as possible. It was a long hot ride. The trailer had a big speed limit sign on the fender, reversed to show in my mirror. SPEED LIMIT 55 MPH. Believe me I had no trouble sticking to that rule. Everyone passed me. Even the semis. But I did OK until I crossed into Indiana on I-70. That was the busiest freeway of the trip, and the bumpiest. Yikes! I was so glad to leave I-70 for the back roads. Even though the backroads that had looked direct on the map, turned out to be twisties. Beautiful roads, but not what you want to enjoy in a Subaru pulling an overly large trailer. So what Mapquest had suggested would take 5:53 hours, took more like 7 hours. Oh well.
The trailer held the rig with about 3" to spare on each side. It's less terrifying loading a sidecar rig in a trailer, that a two-wheel bike. And I didn't have to compress the suspension - just anchor the wheels, and strap it so it can't roll back and forth. The seller (who has been marvelous to deal with and very friendly) fed me dinner again, and I was on the road home at dusk.
I decided to risk Indianapolis, rather than face the twisties in the dark and the bumps of I-70. I didn't care about the slow construction zones - I was the slow one anyway. It went just fine, with no traffic jams, and light traffic; I didn't feel like an obstruction. Mapquest's first choice had suggested I take US-24 from Fort Wayne to Maumee, and I figured the less Michigan freeway I took, the better, so I went that way. It was fine except for I-469 around Fort Wayne, which was another really bumpy stretch. Fortunately by the time I got there, it was after 2am, and I was alone on it, so I was able to drive slow in the left lane, which was smoother. US24 east of Fort Wayne had more construction, but I just took it slow. About 20 minutes south of my house, on US23, there was a dead possum in the middle of my lane, and I straddled it. Bang! Something under the car hit it. Turned out it was the trailer hitch, and it unhooked two of the three safety chains. That was very noisy but not a serious problem.
I pulled up in front of my house, just as the sun was coming up. I went to bed for a few hours, then got up and got the bike unloaded so I could take the trailer back before my 24 hours was up. I ended up having to pull into a terrible spot in the U-Haul lot, to get out of the way of the other people trying to pull in there. I was afraid I'd never get out, and I did have to wait probably half an hour, but two U-Haul guys eventually came with a special hand truck to move trailers, and untangled things enough for me to get out. The Subaru sure drives GREAT when it doesn't have a trailer attached to it!
I came home and went back to bed for another four hours. When I got up I still felt like crap, and when I weighed myself I realized why. I lost five pounds between yesterday morning and today. Probably all water. It was a long hot ride in the car.
But it's here!
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 02:49 pm (UTC)I have an old set of bathroom scales that I can sling in the back of the Land-Rover, if towing anything of any weight is likely to happen, for the purpose of roughly checking trailer nose-weight - getting the weight optimally located on the trailer to give the optimal nose weight can make the difference between a stress free journey and ending up on your roof at the end of a 300 yard trail of bent metal detritus!