Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Sudbury Ontario to Omemee Ontario and Back - Getting the New Trailer

Tuesday was a bad day as I coughed and hacked through the first day of my cold. But the Wednesday forecast was good and I had set a time of noon to pick up the new trailer in Omemee Ontario, about 240 southeast of here. Regardless of condition, I would go.

It was clear Wednesday and a little cool at the start. This wouldn’t be the case for long. About 7:30 I headed south on Highway 69 at a steady 120 KPH, about the upper limit of what I could hope the gendarmes would let me get away with. Stopped for water I Parry Sound and then took Old Highway 69 to Foot’s bay and Highway 169 to Gravenhurst. Old 69, recently replaced with a four lane divided highway, felt familiar but didn’t have hardly any traffic. Highway 169 is a scenic road that twists and turns through cottage country where the unfortunate denizens of southern Ontario cities escape for the weekends. From Gravenhurst, four lane Highway 11 and then more 169, 12 and 7 were relatively flat and straight. For some reason, Highway 12 seems to be the dump truck capital of Ontario. I hate dump trucks.

I arrived in Omemee a little early. After fueling up (I had 405 km’s on the tank, a new high), I found L&L Trailers and Guy waiting for me. He showed me some trailer things and wired the plug I got from Bushtec to the trailer harness. After adjusting the bulbs for a five-wire configuration, we turned it all on. Everything worked except the tail lights. The test light showed no juice from the bike so I assumed a problem in the wiring Bushtec had done. No big deal since I would be returning home in daylight. We attached the licence plate off my cargo trailer, not a legal practice but an expedient one, tied up the safety chains and I was on my way.

I headed home the exact reverse route. The trailer towed well all the way home and I was able to maintain about the same speed as I did going down. There was a headwind most of the way and, although I could tell by the fuel consumption, the bike didn’t complain at all. I got in about 5:30 having covered 480 miles and spent an hour getting the trailer in a ten-hour period. By this time I was pretty wiped out and went to bed early.

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