Be careful who you let hook your trailer up

[dgood1]

Wingnut,

I have done my share of sliding sideways, slowing down as much as possible before going off the road and going over the handlebars. I just shake my head though at the people I see here in SC that don't wear a helmet and wear shorts, t-shirts, and sandals or even worse go bare foot on their bikes.

Road rash is something that I haven't had yet. broken bones yes.

'68 BSA '86 Voyager.

Don

 

[Wingnut]

Don,

I think that's the official uniform of the crotch rocket set ... I cringe every time I see someone dressed like that!

While I'm not totally "safe" since I just can't abide the confines of a full-face helmet (wear 3/4 instead) ... I wear a leather jacket and gloves and steel toed bike boots ... always.

Keep the colored side up and ride safe!

pete
'82 Aspencade '02 Goldwing

and to get this back on trailers ... my bike trailer has chains for the tongue as well as chains for each side and the back of the tongue (it folds down to the ground to load and unload bikes) .... and I've learned to doublecheck the ball, hitch, tongue bolts and lights ... since I'd really hate to see a 20k bike end-over-ending down the road behind me!

 

[dgood1]

Wingnut,

I have had the missfortune of being on I-95 travelling between SC and Miami during bike week in Daytona. It amazes me when I see all of the things that people use for trailers to tow 2-5 bikes that cost 18-35K each.

I also got to see several trailers upside down or separated from the tow vehicles.

Don

 

[Jeff396]

A while back I belonged to a HOG chapter in Michigan. A fellow member and his wife decided to take their Harley out to Sturgis on a bike trailer that he made. On the way back, while traveling down the highway, the entire tongue broke loose of the trailer. This thing took off rolling down the highway at 60+ mph and ended up in a ditch. The Harley gods must of been watching over him because somehow it never flipped. He ended up giving the trailer to the towing company for payment and rode his bike home the rest of the way while his wife followed in the family vehicle. Amazing luck!/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Jeff

 

[Wingnut]

Don,

I'm always surprised by what people use to transport bikes (and other stuff). The $200 local hardware store specials are sometimes the best of the lot.

I have a custom built, heavy duty, torsion bar suspensoin trailer for mine ... although I have hauled a bike twice in my pickup .... locked down exceptionally well. Saving a few bucks on transport and spending megabucks to fix up the resulting mess is not my idea of an intelligent decision.

About 6 weeks ago, I towed my old bike up to Montreal to drop off my motorhome (and ride back 700+ miles). The roads were so bad in Quebec that one of the 3000 lb ratchet straps let go. The trailer bounced so much on those rough roads that the hook on one end actually was stretched straight! But no damage to anything since I always practice overkill! When I return to pick up the motorhome, you'd best believe it'll be even more attachment redundancy since I'll have a bike worth 10 X as much behind me.

 

[gusg]

I lost a trailer once even though I did everything right except for one thing. The 2" trailer ball had a shank that was smaller than the hole in the receiver. I was going up U.S. 101 in California North of Ventura when the 5' X 8' trailer tonque full of furniture hit the pavement. As it turned out, the ball shank had sheared off from moving in the receiver. The hitch had to be cut off and a new one put on the trailer. The chains held and the trailer had no breakaway.

As soon as I relaized that the trailer had come off I slowed down and let the trailer stop me. I remembered a guy once who had his boat halfway in his pickup bed because he slammed on the brakes. I felt fortunate because the trailer tongue could have easily hit an uneven piece of concrete and flipped. The ball receiver was worn half away and was red hot. In fact the ball was almost welded in the ball receiver. I had to hammer it out. I dragged it for a good 2/10 ths of a mile before I stopped from 55 MPH.

Getting the thing back on the road was an adventure. Bought a new ball (with the right size shank) and made it the 100 miles home with half of the ball receiver. I had to leave the trailer while I got the ball. Everything was still there as I left it on the side of the freeway. I figured there would be nothing left. I now make sure that I have the right equipment for the job and try not to Mickey Mouse anything.

 

[dgood1]

Back in the 70's I got to see about a 20' boat parked on top of a Cadillac on the Palmeto expressway in Miami.

The driver had to stop fast and the boat came off of the trailer. Left a nice crease on the trunk and top of the Caddy.

Glad that I haven't had that happen. Guess that's why I am a little bit **** on making sure that what is on the trailer is "one with the trailer."

Don

 

[jwstewar]

I've had a couple of close calls with trailers. First one was pulling a relative's camper out of a campground in a hurry. The campground we were at could flood in a real heavy rain storm and the Army Corp. let water out of the dam to protect the state owned beaches. They Corp. called the camp ground and set they were going to fully open the dam in 2 ours which meant 3 hours wefore the water hit (in reality by the time we actually heard we were back to 2 hours) and we had 6 campers to get out with only 2 tow vehicles (we had set up permanentely and not everyone drove there tow vehicles and some were at work) so we started tearing things down. I hooked up to this particular camper with a 2" (so I thought ball) because that is what I had on the truck the week before. Didn't know Dad (I was only 17 at the time) had used the truck to tow another trailer and put 1 7/8" ball on. When I hooked up it was just to move the trailer about 2 or 3miles to higher ground down the road in a Kroger parking lot. The fasteners on the chain had rusted and I couldn't get it loose and time was wasting. I said forget it and go. Hit a bump and looked back the trailer was getting farther away I started slowing down and finally let the trailer hit me so that I could stop it with the truck. Got it stopped put the truck in park to go back and access the situation. The trailer is getting farther from me again. I stopped on an incline. The trailer is rolling back down the hill. I get out and run up to the tongue. Not knowing what else to do I grab. Low and behold I could lift it (trailer was improperly balanced/loaded we later figured out. (Never remove the a cast iron water tank in the front of a camper w/o replacing the weight) I was able to "steer" the camper off to the side of the road to a ditch where it finally stopped. Backed the truck up put the 2" ball on hooked back up and finished recovery duties. Only damage was a dented tailgate and smashed the corner of the camper a little. By the time I pulled the last camper out we were in about 3" of water that went to rise to about 6 or 7'.

Other time was when I bought my '97 Chevy with new receiver. Dad did the fastening (funny how it seems I'm always blaming Dad isn't it?). I did the quick once over as I was driver. Got to the campground and noticed something didn't look right. As someone described earlier the latch didn't go down around the ball and was actually on top of the ball. The only thing holding the trailer to the receiver were the sway/torsion/weight distributing bars whatever you want to call them. Got lucky on that one.

 

[BWa]

Back when I was a kid , we had a Camper ,. Dad used it to stay in when he did the Springfield Fair , he would do the PA work for the different 4H showings and Demos .
He was coming home on the MassPike at 10pm on a Sunday night in the passing lane when the hitch broke ..... Only thing hold the trailer was the chains it followed behind him until it flippped on to it's side and jacked knifed the trailer in to the buick 225 electria 's rear quarter. He got everything stopped and got out quick , NO ONE HIT THAT MESS........ The guy following behind him saw the lights go out and the sparks from the tongue and was able to warn others away in time ....Being only a kid at the time I never was told or ask why/how it happened just that dad can home late that night and glad to see him . He had to go back later to get things cleaned out of the camper , that was totaled ( had a full tank in it two ...) ..
Bill G.

 

[jhburke]

My screwup one time was when I was in a hurry to get my case 448 tractor to a mowing job. I hooked up and loaded the trailer. When I was going to the job I heard a thump, looked back everything looked ok. Did my mowing and reloaded the trailer and headed home. Heard the thump some more. When I got home and unloaded the trailer, when I went to unhook the trailer I found that I had installed the hitch ball bar lock in front of the bar. The thump I heard was the bar hitting the lock when I hit the brakes or slowed down. The only reason the bar didn't come out was because the safty chains were to short for it to slip completly out. The Lord was watching over me that day.