Trip report - Pulling a Trailer up hill

[bigjohn]

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the BTK Forum Ride in Red Lodge, MT. This was my third trip to Red Lodge with this group. Good people, great times, excellent food and plenty of good cold, local beer.

Roger, a VN-900 rider from the Puget Sound area, spent the night here in Lake Stevens with Nancy and I. We hit the road early Tuesday morning.




Roger's VN900 and my Nomad parked in the garage. My wife informed me that I shouldn't get too use to having more than one bike in the garage. :-[

On this journey, Rogers' "little" 900 did a very credible job of keeping up with my 1500 Nomad. True, I was handicapped a little with 450 to 500 pounds of trailer tailgating me.


We pulled out of Lake Stevens at about 8:00 AM and headed for US 2 for Stevens Pass, Wenatchee and Spokane. From Spokane we hit the I-90 Super slab to St Regis, MT for the night.



This is my dear, sweet Naomi the Nomad parked in front of the bunkhouse trailer at the St Regis Campground. The Bunkhouse is, in my never to be humble opinion, the best bang for the buck camper trailer you can buy. Lots of room inside, you sleep in a king sized bed, up off the ground, can access all your "stuff" inside the trailer from inside the tent when it is up. AND I can put up the basic trailer in less than 5 minutes, without help.

In the morning, it took me just a little longer to get organized, put everything away, fold up my little camper, hook it to the bike and be ready to ride. Plus, it is nice to have everything accessible from outside the trailer while on the road. You can just dump your leathers into the trailer when it gets too hot. And, the ice chest is a real nice touch...cold lemonade at every road side stop. Sweet...



Oh yeh...roger slept in a tent. It took us about the same amount of time to set up and tear down.



Our destination, the Alpine Motel, in Red Lodge, MT. And all the friends I haven't' seen in about a year, plus some I'd never met. It was a good time.









This is Big Jim, the owner of Beartooth Kawasaki, sponsor of the ride and the force behind the BTK forum. He is, beyond all shadow of a doubt, one of the kindest, nicest, biggest hearted people I've ever met.


The following are people and bikes at the rally. This year's group was a little smaller than the last two years. There were about 25 or 30 out of towner's. Even so, it was a great time. Montana and the Beartooth Mountains are a great place to ride.











This trip was the first time that I had had the opportunity to really test the 1500 Nomad pulling the Bunkhouse. On the flats I encountered no problems. The trailer pulls like a happy little puppy dog and just follows where ever I lead. Up and down little hills is no problem. Leave some extra space for braking and maneuvering. You will never forget that it is back there, it's kind of like carrying a very large passenger behind you.

Where I really began to notice the additional drag was on the mountain passes like Stevens Pass (about 4100 ft), 4th of July (Maximum Elevation: 3,173 ft. Maximum Grade: 5%), Lookout Pass (Maximum Elevation: 4,725 ft. Maximum Grade: 6%). The combination of altitude and grade resulted in considerable performance degradation. I had to drop down into 4th and, once or twice, into 3rd going up the grades . The down hill runs were a little scary to start with. It felt like I was being pushed down hill by the trailer. Just had to get use to the feeling.

Out on the flats across central Washington we encountered high winds. Fortunately, they were from behind, mostly. I heard form the weather guessers that the winds were clocked at 40 to 50 mph. Sweet, that helped with the fuel consumption, which had tanked.

I normally get 120 miles before the warning light comes on (2000 Nomad with only 4.7 Gal). Pulling the trailer over hill and dale the consumption drooped from an average of 38 or 40 to 30 or 35. Worst was on he return trip, westbound, into 30 mph headwinds going up hill over some of the Montana passes at 75 and 80 mph, wide open throttle the consumption dropped to as low as 25 MPG. :-/

My conclusion, sad to say, is that when pulling a 450 to 500 pound trailer across the passes of the Pacific Northwest, a 1500 cc Nomad is adequate at best and marginal at worst.

I am reevaluating my tow vehicle needs. I don't want to giv eup the Nomad, i love it too much and have finallygot it set up to where i redally like it.

But, Kawasaki does make a vehilce thatshould have more than enough power and handling for the task...



Look Ma...it fits!!!



If I put Nomad bags on it, can I still stick around here?