I'm sure you've heard the phrase "The adventure is its own reward" many times by now. Let me tell you, getting a trailer hitch on a car is quite the adventure these days. For our purposes, we're not using it for a trailer, but rather a hitch mounted bike rack. As you can see below, we did get it installed and loaded successfully:
The pic is a bit of an optical illusion. The bikes aren't that much wider than the car. Anyway, the adventure I was speaking of was the one that took us about a month to complete in getting the hitch actually installed on the car. I'm throwing this out there as an informational statement for any of you who are planning big vacations later this Summer and might be considering such an upgrade to your car.
It began in mid-May, a few weeks after Rae had traded in her Chevy Trax for the Equinox you can see above, hiding behind four bikes (side note: the used vehicle market is decidedly in the buyers' favour right now, so take a look around - you'd be surprised what kind of great deals you can find). The intent was to increase the in-car capacity and also add a trailer hitch to maximize that extra space. Soon after exchanging cars, I booked an appointment with U-Haul to get a hitch installed.
On a Wednesday afternoon, the day before the installation, we got a call that the part was not in stock and was on order, hopefully to be shipped within a day or two from a store not too far from ours. They said they would call us when the part was in to reschedule our installation. No big deal, right? We still had almost a month until we left for the beach.
Well...the weekend passed and so did Monday without an update, so I called. There wasn't much new information available; the part was still on order, and supposed to be in soon. On top of that, their chief hitch installation technician was on vacation for that week. I was starting to get a little concerned. I waited a few more days, called again, and was told the same thing. After a third try, we decided that we had to go into the store to speak with a manager directly.
Before you get the wrong idea, we didn't go full Karen on the guy. We explained that we simply wanted an update on the situation and what we could expect, because we were now just a little over two weeks away from the trip. As is common in this day and age, manufacturers can't keep up with demand, so almost every hitch that they sell is on backorder, with requests filled ASAP. The staff at U-Haul actually recommended that we look into plan B if we had one.
Thankfully, we did. We found a hitch on etrailer.com that matched our car and decided to do a self-install. I had considered doing this anyway when U-Haul said their technician was away, figuring I could grab the hitch and save some money. If you have the tools, the capability, and the time to do the work, I highly recommend going this route. Our hitch was delivered in less than a week and we were ready to install as soon as it arrived:
I do recommend having an extra set of hands to help in the process (thanks to my neighbor for being that extra set of hands). The process really wasn't all that difficult. All the parts were included, and the etrailer website has installation videos for just about everything they sell. And so, after about a month of back-and-forth, we had our upgrade:
It is also worth noting that if you're looking to buy a bike rack, they're also in short supply these days. We bought this one used at an estate sale towards the end of last Summer. In hindsight, I'm really glad we didn't install it on the old car.
I wanted to get it installed a few weeks early so we could test it out around home before making a long trip. Though I didn't get to do as much testing as I would have liked, it did all work out in the end, and the bikes survived all the way to Delaware:
This is a good chance for me to mention my friends at First State Brewing, who just opened late last year. If you are passing thru Middletown, DE, I highly recommend stopping in. The food (and beer) are fantastic, and it's extremely family-friendly.
Anywho, I'm writing this whole thing from Bethany Beach, DE, on the final day of our vacation. It's gray and rainy outside this morning after almost a full week of beautiful sunny days. In an interesting twist, it's been so hot and sunny that we've wanted to spend most of our time at the beach (go figure), so the bikes have been mostly sitting idle at the bike racks for the majority of the trip. I'm not complaining at all. I just find it amusing.
That's not to say there hasn't been some bike activity. Of course, I have been making sure to ride every day around the neighborhood at the very least:
I took one ride to the beach for the day when the kiddo and Rae were feeling like staying out of the sun:
Rae and I took a quick ride to pick up breakfast for the family one morning:
I was able to sneak in one longer-ish ride down the Coastal Highway to Ocean City, MD to visit friends a couple days ago:
And finally, Rae and I took a 5AM ride yesterday to see the sunrise over the ocean on what will probably be the last nice weather day of this trip:
And of course, now that we have the carrying capacity, this is just the first of what will hopefully be many more adventures with our new toys. The majority of Summer lies ahead, and I am excited to see what we'll see...
