Getting ready to ease on down the road

Sunset Saguaros

Turned out to be a nice day today at Box Wash it made it up into the high 60s which felt pretty good. We've got one more day like this and then it will get back into the 70s again.

Since I'm planning on leaving here pretty soon, maybe Monday or Tuesday, I loaded the Yamaha WR450 onto its rack on the back of the Arctic Fox and tied it down. The only difference was this time I pulled it up the ramp with my homemade redneck winch arrangement that I talked about in my blog a few months ago.

I was a bit nervous at first about all the things that could possibly go wrong with this whole operation, after all I have to balance the bike until it's off the ramp and on the rack at which time I can lean it against the back of the trailer. But if something were to go wrong, such as the winch stopped working for some reason I would be in a bad situation.

 I can't let go of the bike or it will fall off the ramp. I couldn't unhook it from the winch and go back down the ramp because it's under tension. And I don't think I could push it up the rest of the way manually because normally I get a running start to push it up the ramp and I don't know if I could push it the rest of the way up from a standstill.

All that was going through my mind while guiding it up the ramp trying to keep the foot pegs from hitting the taillights, and the handlebars from catching on the rear ladder, and to not trip on the various protuberances on the back of the rack.

fortunately it all worked as planned and was actually the easiest and least stressful of all the times I've loaded the Yamaha up on the rack. There's a few annoyances I need to work on but nothing major and was very pleased at how smoothly things went for this first load up. It's kind of early to be sure but I think I will never have to physically push the bike up that ramp again.

                           theboondork

The Yamaha WR450 all tied down and almost ready to go. The purple strap hanging down is what I put behind the forks to attach the winch hook up to. And I still have to lock it up with the cable, and the chain, and then put the cover over it.

Box Wash Saguaro