We put on 4,997 miles on the trip. Left on July 6th and made it back home the evening of July 18th.
I took a few pics (or so I thought i did) of the trailer after it was completed - however something was goofy with my digital camera and I had to reformat the memory in order for it to work for the trip - so i don't have any "as completed" pics which show the real nice chrome
Bicycle fender which turned out to be the weak link of this design!
On our first night into the trip, we made it as far as Oacoma, SD. There were a couple of good size bumps in the road which I couldn't see in the dark (last night time driving we did on this trip - so much for attempting to make up time!)...the 2nd bump caused the rear edge of the fender to connect with the tire and that's all she wrote for the tire, tube and fender! The fender turned into a "pretzel" and was wedged up against the tire (now flat) and we had to take the fender off to limp back roughly 1 mile to an off ramp.
We were down for a day while my wife back home located a spare tire 70 miles behind us. However that was a knobby tire and not street tread - hey I'd take what ever they have at this point!
That knobby lasted until we made it to the west coast - it had developed a nice bald spot on one side. My wife thought she had located another spare in Eureka, CA. and we hauled butt to make it there by closing. Turned out to be a bicycle shop and they couldn't help us. Stayed over night and we did locate the one and only spare they had for miles around. After speaking with the guys at the mc shop, they reminded me that knobby tires are not rated for hwy use so we lowered the speed a bit at first. They also balanced this tire which helped alot. The street tread tire I had first mounted and the 1st knobby spare were not balanced. Note, on the way back home, I did have it up to 80mph at times and the knobby tire held up just fine and made it all the way home (2000 miles give or take) and it appears to still have 75% life left on it - balancing must have helped alot.
Since I couldn't trust the amount of miles a knobby tire would last, and considering how hard it is to locate 2.50x14 tires, we made the choice of heading east out of Eureka towards home instead of continuing down the coast to L.A., California.
My wife back home had located an actual street tread tire in Roseville, CA., so we headed down there from Redding, CA. to pick up the spare and change the oil in the bike. The nice folks at Roseville Yamaha said it was cool that I could change my oil behind their bldg.
Over all the trailer handled just fine. The best part about it is you don't have to take it into consideration when going into the twisties...you just ride your bike like normal and lean as needed. One side marker light is out - didn't notice that until after we had got back.
Oh yeah, I dropped the bike twice on this trip, first time ever! The 1st was in Murdo - I had forgotten to put the kickstand down and wondered why I wasn't hearing the usual noise of the kickstand when I layed it over to the left...and the 2nd was in Waldport, OR. when we were stopping for dinner. The 1st drop, my daughter helped me pick it up, the 2nd time I did it the "correct" way and just by myself (with your back to the bike, you pick up on the handle bar and saddlebag guard) and it was actually very easy to pick up. Note, the trailer was still connected to the bike both times, and it never touched the ground while the bike was on its side...only water had drained out of the cooler!
I didn't take alot of pics myself, but my daughter took over 400. I concentrated on taking pics of the bike/trailer and background scenery to show the trailer at those locations.
The link below is to just the pics I took (36)
http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/ampster_photos/
from Murdo, SD. which was suppose to be where we stayed the 1st night, turned out to be the 2nd night.
![Image](http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/ampster_photos/DSCF0001-1.jpg)