drn151
You may remember that Switz has a Tailwind. He also has a Bushtec which he bought first and had a second on order, switching it to a Tailwind.
At the time, he paid more for his Bushtec on order than he paid for his Tailwind that he actually got.
I am glad you got a trailer. I hope you get to use it a lot.
I started building and pulling trailers for motorcycles in April of 1957 so I have been at it quite a while.
When I decided to switch to luggage trailer pulling, I thought I would just buy one as I was very heavily involved in aviation design and manufacture and did not have time to do a new trailer line.
I bought Escapade, Champion, and Hannigan, all having parallel suspension and hydraulic damping. I offered to help Bushtec do a parallel suspension design but they never responded.
There were many compromises in these various trailers, some more than others. I finally decided that the only way to get a no compromise trailer was to design and build one. That is what the Tailwind is about.
It is obviously not for everyone. But for those who get them, just like the Goldwing, it would be hard to switch them to anything else.
Relative to E Glass being overkill, I can not tell you how many times I had to adjust the lid of the Champion and Escapade trailers as the FRP continued to cold creep. At the various rallies in which we had booths, we saw Bushtec owners having their lids adjusted and tires changed. Polyester resin just does not harden to a non creeping material. I wished FRP did not creep. It would save me a lot of money, if it also had the strength of E Glass.
The Tailwind lid is the largest in the industry. It weighs 19 pounds. The next largest is the Champion. My first Champion lid weight 90 pounds. It still crept.
We all have to do what we think is the right thing. I take delight in knowing that our customers will not need to go looking for a welder if they decide to go to Alaska, or that they will very likely never have a Tailwind roll over.
We do not make the shocks. They are Progressive and we have had two fail. That and one wheel seal is the sum total of our warranty replacements.
Sometimes the roads in Alaska are really harsh. Here is a photo of a rig belonging to an Alaskan resident who, along with his wife, were thrown from their Valkyrie by an unmarked ice gouge about 600 miles from their home in Alaska. The Valkyrie had the throttle locked by an aftermarket lock, and the bike went on by itself pulling the Tailwind until the road turned. The photo below shows how it ended up in the bottom of a 25 foot deep ravine. The only damage was the aft section of the draw bar which they ordered a new one from us. The Tailwind had a few scratches that were treated by a local paint and body shop. Their personal injuries were not severe. They got their rig repaired and were back on the road that summer.
I realize that not many will have a major incident and hope that no one does. It is a fact of life that when we travel several thousand miles a year, we are exposed to errors by others, even if we never made any ourselves.
Sheila Winnie's record setting ride of 126,120 miles pulling a Taiwind in a year exposed her to several incidents. One of these was being struck broadside by a pickup being driven illegally on the shoulder. It hit her heavily loaded Tailwind at 35 mph.
The E glass body had damage to the front of the right side panel which was replaced, and the aft section of the draw bar which was replaced. However, she pulled it 2,460 miles from the impact site to our shop two days later in a day and a half, for repair. Not too hard to figure out the speed you have to go to do 2,460 miles in a day and a half, and this was a trailer that had a very severe impact.
Over the years, we have been accused of making a trailer that: "had too much quality" or was "over engineered", or was "overkill."
Relative to the very low drag coefficient, there are several manifestations of high aerodynamic drag, of which high fuel usage is one. The partner of fuel economy is tank range. This weekend, we had a ride out west and one of the riders was on a 1500 with a Tailwind. It is nice to have the 80 mph speed limits west of Kerrville, but it is hard on fuel economy because there is always a heavy cross wind which is why there are so many windmill farms there. The fuel stations are few and far between and some have just been closed, like Balmorea. At one fuel stop, the rider of the 1500 put in 6.3 gallons of gas. That is the capacity of the tank, so even though his engine was still running, he was out of gas. That would have been 10 or 20 miles of pushing with a high drag trailer.
Final drive wear and rear tire wear are also manifestations of high drag trailers.
The most insidious one though, is the performance loss at high speed. Remember, aerodynamically, that horsepower required goes up to the cube of the speed increase. If you have a high drag rig, using a large percentage of your available horsepower in cruise, then you do not have the excess horsepower needed to accelerate in restricted passing situations.
With the Tailwind, I very rarely down shift to pass, even thought I have a 70 series tire that is like overdrive gearing.
The Tailwind is very low drag, so you do have to start your deceleration earlier than with other trailers. Kind of like the difference in shooting an approach in a DC 3 versus a DC 9.