Promoting - Tow Vehicle Revisted

On the way home on Sunday I watched some tractor trailers as well as a couple pickups towing small trailers. I thought about my trailer and tow vehicle problem. It's something really occupying my mind when there's room in there next to the 2013 Series.

You probably know this but the current Bethel van, an older 15 passenger Dodge van, is nearing the end of its serviceable life. I started looking for a replacement but then thought that if I was buying a new vehicle I should think long term, not just next year.

This made me think of trailers. 

After some thought, a bunch of feedback, and some more research, I'm pretty set on the trailer idea. I figure it would be 2500 lbs or so, 14-18' long, 6'-7' wide, hopefully close to 6' high inside, maybe 4000 lbs fully loaded with race promotion stuff. I realized I wouldn't need as much gear as I have in the van because some of it would be replaced by the trailer itself. So, for example, I shouldn't need to bring two tents, nor a number of tables, etc. A lot of that stuff could sit in whatever future trailer and the one-off things, like maybe a snow blower, could sit in the tow vehicle.

For the tow vehicle it'll be either a cheap(er) pick up, like a Ford F250 type, or I'll trade in the Golf and get a used Touareg. If I got a pickup it'd sit outside and therefore be somewhat disposable like the van. Those are my two options at this point.

I decided against a big SUV, like an Expedition or Suburban, because it would be a pain to own it based on our house/driveway/garage situation. We wouldn't be able to park it in our garage so it would have to sit outside year round. As it is such a vehicle would be hard to keep in our driveway. If we did decide to garage it our storage bay is not close enough for regular access, and it would force us to keep the trailer outside.

The lack of easy access to the SUV means that we'd need to keep two smaller cars as we do now. The big SUV would replace the van as the "third vehicle", becoming the third vehicle in our array, not a replacement for the Golf or the Jetta Sportswagen.

On the other hand the Touareg, being just 8 inches longer than the Jetta Sportswagen (aka JSW), should fit in our very compact bay, and it should be able to tow 4000 lbs (it's rated at 7000+ lbs). Other than its sister SUV the Porsche Cayenne there are no vehicles I can find that are rated to tow 5000-7000 lbs and is in the same size range as the JSW. A few folks have questioned the size of our garage spot in the sense of "Are you sure it won't fit?"

It's small.

The bay is awfully short - there's about a foot behind the back of the car.

The intrusion from the right is the dining/office room.

I took the picture from the right side bay also, a longer bay but more narrow. On the right side we pull in the Golf, turn the wheel to the right so the tire hits the wall, and the only way to squeeze past the car to get to the stairs is to fold in the side view mirror. Another foot of width and we'd have to NASCAR our way in and out of the vehicle, climbing out of the window onto the hood to get to the steps.

Golf in the right side bay. The right front tire is hitting the wall.

I framed the picture so the left side of the frame is the dining/office wall.

Of course there's the whole idea of being more efficient when we drive around for day to day stuff. Although a full size SUV would be great for towing it wouldn't be great for day to day driving. On bad days we get 35-37 mpg in our two TDis, on the good days they're in the mid-40s, and on great days it's over 50 mpg. We wouldn't use the full size SUV to do long trips because even with a few bikes on the roof of a loaded down JSW we're in the low-mid 30 mpg range, much higher than the 12-15 mpg that we could expect from a large SUV.

To be honest the Touareg wouldn't be much better than a larger SUV. Even at the 25 mpg the diesel version would get with no rack on the roof we'd be getting worse mileage than the JSW with a couple bikes up top. Worse still we wouldn't be getting any benefit from the Touareg versus the JSW in terms of space - it's only inches larger inside, slightly wider, but wouldn't fit an exponential amount more stuff like a full size SUV.

So after all my debating internally I've decided that I should go with a semi-disposable pickup truck, one capable of pulling at least 4000 lbs of trailer. A full size F250-F350 type is rated at some insane 10,000+ lbs towing capacity so that would be fine. Although a crew cab would allow me to carry Junior in the back I think realistically saving money and getting the standard cab will work fine. If I have to run "bulky item errands" I'll have to do it when Junior is under someone else's watch.

Of course what happened on my next ride? This rig passed me.

Pretty much what I've been thinking about - 12-14' trailer, pickup pulling it.

Now to figure out a budget and see if I can do it sooner than later. Although the tow vehicle comes first  the trailer should follow shortly thereafter. I could probably get by without the trailer for a bit but for future race promotion plans the trailer is key.

Promoting - 2013 Bethel CDR Gold Race

Monday always seems like such a relief during the Bethel Spring Series. It's quiet, the car is (hopefully) unpacked, and there's a few small fixes to make but otherwise the Series is running reasonably well.

This week marks the break for Easter Sunday so for me there's no race to promote this coming weekend. It means that the stuff I usually leave until Thursday, like putting together the deposit for the race or moving some of the stuff inside from the garage, I need to do that sooner, maybe even today or tomorrow.

Yesterday on race day I basically ran out of Leader's Jerseys for one main reason - when I went to do wash at my dad's house the dryer had just broken. Therefore I couldn't do laundry. It was just a minor hiccup in the scheme of things but it meant that the first thing I did after finishing a GC (with just a few errors, still to be fixed) was to do a massive load of laundry. I have one more load to do, more lost and found clothing, or, technically, "Found and Lost" since we usually found it before the owners realized they didn't have it.

Before I headed down there we (the Missus and I) did all the pre-reg work. It's an evening of work, usually on Friday evening after she gets home from work. It's a long day for her (an accountant during tax season), a long one for me (with everything else that I have to get done for the races), so we asked for some help.

Junior helping with pre-reg.

Any errors you know who to see.

Saturday I have to look after Junior until the Missus gets home from work in the early/mid afternoon. I heard from a secret source that the town had swept the course on Friday so I wasn't in too much of a rush to get down to my dad's - I even planned to meet my family at my dad's at 5:30 PM. Normally I'd want to leave as soon as possible so I can check out and clean up the course before heading over to my dad's.

Unfortunately we needed to get some groceries, I needed to get fuel (both of our cars were running on fumes), and I couldn't get some stuff done before I had to leave. As it was I was late - it was 4:30 PM when I left, not 4:00 PM. I wouldn't make it to the house in an hour so after a short call to my brother we shuffled our plans to meet at our normal restaurant hang out at 6 PM. (The family is so regular at the restaurant that when we showed up the first or second week of the Series with Junior in tow and sat at the 8 person table a family sitting near us commented, "I think that's a new baby in that family, I haven't seen it before.")

By the time we got back to my dad's it was late, the dryer was broken, and, with the printer, cables, surge protectors, and all that packed away in the car, I decided to call it a night.

The bikes outside my dad's. Thankfully no snow in the picture this night.

I woke up a bit worried about oversleeping, my usual way of sleeping before a Bethel. I trundled out to the course, unpacked the car by the registration door, moved the van over, and even got some of the van stuff unpacked before other people showed up. With our normal registration person out for the day I needed to take up the slack at the table. Our camera guy would take over the registration laptop while I was doing the clinic or the race.

Things generally went smoothly at registration. A few late registrants, who got in touch with me at some point during Saturday, had to fill out release forms and such since I didn't have all the gear unpacked and set up for most of said Saturday. Even before I left for my dad's house it was all in boxes, staged either in the house or in the garage, and once I got to my dad's it was all in the car and staying there. Otherwise things went well.

We had good marshaling coverage, thanks to all the racers that pitched in and helped. A few riders really put in some time out there and for that I am very thankful. It makes for a safer race - although I carried a radio in the race just in case (turned off for fairness) I never even felt the need to reach for it.

The very cold morning gave way to a bit more palatable afternoon - I actually raced in knickers instead of tights, and I wore two long sleeve layers with a wind vest instead of a long sleeve with a full winter jacket.

After the race we started packing up during the P123 race, trying to get out of there before it got too late. By my watch we were out of there at 4:15 or so, about an hour earlier than the first week. That wasn't bad.

Just before I left.

Note that the red bike's bars have tape on them now.

I headed home, the car's mileage battered by a combination of the wind and the bikes on the roof. Instead of averaging about 40 mpg in the wind, or 43 mpg under better conditions on the same hilly route, the car managed just 36 mpg. Luckily we'd just filled up before I left the house so I was okay.

I got home too late to see Junior as he'd gone to sleep. I came in only after I unpacked the car and set up his car seat - this way I could get us in the car and go if it came to that. He fussed a bit in his crib after I got in the house but I didn't want him getting up to see me so I left the Missus to take care of him.

Of course he woke up at half past midnight and with the Missus working long hours 6 days a week that meant I needed to get up with him. He tried to get his Sunday play time in at that time, finally conking out at 1:15 AM. He'd whimper occasionally until 1:45 AM before waking up again at 6.

Ah yes, back to reality. Three more races and then the craziness ends, at least for the Bethel Spring Series.