Jim_Oker

Thanks for the OR link. That's cold for Mt Baker - they get great snow depth but it is often quite close to 32 degrees up there due to the heavy coastal influence (weather coming straight up the Nooksack valley). Baker is great on a nice weather day. Not so great in a storm for the most part - a lot of it is out in the open so any bad weather tends to make it very hard to see. It's much easier to find visibility in the forest and along forested trail edges where there is more directionality to the light while in a cloud or blizzard. OTOH I love both Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie Pass ski areas for stormy weather lift skiing (and nearby forests for stormy day ski touring). Some of my role models here in the WA backcountry skiing community are still backcountry skiing as well as riding the lifts into their 70s and 80s. I hope to maintain the health and fitness required to follow their examples (one of the 80-somethings had a stroke which slowed him down but he's still skiing a LOT just on more moderate terrain and fewer hours each day; and another of them has had a few surgeries for pretty serious brain cancer but still gets after it!). Shortly after my 55th birthday I was ski touring with one of them, and he did great on a fairly strenuous day of up and downhill skiing. I asked him "Frank - you are an inspiration. I hope to be capable of doing half what you are able to when I reach you age. What's your secret?" He looked at me, smiled, and said "I retired when I was 55!" I see from Facebook that Frank is still keeping quite busy as he approaches 80, with sailing, skiing, hiking, and biking at levels that many thirty sometnings would find exhausting. Like NCEagle (another of us prospective owners) I expect to combine the Oliver and skiing, though perhaps not to the degree he's aiming for. And of course hiking, biking, etc

Yes road bikes, though in either case we'd rinse bikes off if they'd gotten dirty (road bikes can get kinda dirty when riding in the rain depending on where you're riding - lots of fine grit though not the mud that tends to cake into various spots on mountain bikes). And then let the water drip off under the awning or the cover of a tarp before stowing them inside (we tend to have them locked under a tarp quite often at camp, particularly when camped near the Pacific with fine salty spray blowing inland as it tends to do along the west coast. In any case I have observed a bit of a spectrum between let's say Felix Unger and Oscar Madison here in the community. I think we may be somewhere between the middle and Oscar based on calibrating this to what I've read in various threads 😉

A few flakes fell on us while doing a hike up a small mountain near Issaquah WA late this afternoon. We were only about 1,200 above sea level. Looks like snow is starting to come down in the Cascades - I90 is described merely as "traction tires advised" thus far by our state DOT, with "snow and slush on the roadway. Hopefully this week's weather becomes what we skiers call a "base building event" - i.e that this snow sticks around until more piles on top, and so on and so forth. Instead of being washed away by a "pineapple express" next week. One never knows here at this time of year, but those of us who think snow are happy to hear meteorologists calling for a "La nina" climate regime this winter, which often gives us colder temperatures and better snowpack. In any case, if your plans have you coming over out mountains, check the WSDOT pass reports !

It's certainly an easy enough thing to do at home (especially with a mounted belt sander etc. like I have in my shop area) but it seems like they could probably add a pretty cheap step and get more love. Maybe it doesn't pencil out for them, maybe it does.

Yes, that occurred to me too as I was typing that, but still, I like to give people a chance to better serve their markets by really thinking about constructive customer input.

I don't have experience with one of these toilets and off-season storage specifically, but... I think the bigger concern would be storing it in temperatures below the ~55 degrees F that they say is required for good aerobic composting, but above freezing. I stayed in a remote (helicopter access - fly in Saturday with backcountry ski gear and food and drink and fly out the next Saturday kind of thing) mountain hut up in the Selkirks of BC for a week once where they'd just installed an indoor composting toilet (BIG upgrade for guests!) whos composting was supossed to be happening down in the basement (I think it was a Clivus Multrum brand toilet but am not sure - similar in any case). A BIG upgrade for guest experience over having to hoof it a little ways from the hut to a pit toilet through bitter cold and deep snow. We were there in early April after about 12 guests, two guides, an assistant guide, and a cook had been pooping each week since late December. Turns out the basement location wasn't as warm as they had planned. It was not composting properly. It was a bit smelly in the bathroom - much like a National Forest vault toilet that's a bit ripe. But the big problem was what to do with the fetid waste filling the compost container. Wet. Smelly with bad bacterial action and raw sewage. not something that could be neatly shoveled out into the landscape. By the time we got there it was near overflowing and they'd flown in a few 55 gallon drums. One evening after a full hard day of guiding us up and down some fantastic ski terrain, the guides had to don rubber gloves and figure out how to get it all into the drums so they could be flown out and disposed of legally and properly. The smell that came out into the living space of the hut (think nice two story house like structure with 2-3 person bunkrooms and communal eating/hanging space and kitchen) was intense. It was so much worse for the guides. Not just the smell, but having to just reach in with buckets to finally get it all transferred, with the gloves almost meaningless in the mix. I don't know if you'd get a mini version of this experience from unheated storage but let us know if you find out as I won't be taking on that experiment 🙂

I see 6-11" of snow in the forecast for Snoqualmie Pass, over which I-90 travels an hour east of Seattle, for between tomorrow evening and Wednesday morning, and then the National Weather Service's "forecast discussion" for the area speaks of a much stronger weather system coming through toward the weekend with snow levels rising above and dipping below pass level - likely a very messy driving mix if this forecast holds. The calendar may say fall but it's getting wintry in the mountains here in WA for sure.

I see lots of trucks w/o pads but with bikes held this way on I90 heading toward the Cascades from the Seattle greater metro area. All mountain bikes so far. Do people carry road bikes this way too? If I had a truck I'd probably do something similar to Patriot, including the top.

Thanks. I don't love that sort of wheel mount that puts the sideways stresses on a few points on the rims. Fork mount seems more sensible though it does require removing the front wheel and mounting it (which can be done with a hub-attach mount). As I explore this I'll be looking at how the plate/platform that would lay on the floor could be both securely mounted for travel and entirely removed and stashed for camping. I have a few notions I will want to sanity check once I have my trailer. It's not clear to me that this would need to be a lot harder than those other choices once set up. But we all likely have different tradeoffs in mind and choices are a beautiful thing 🙂 I don't think there's one right method for everyone (though the reverse is not true - there are for sure some wrong methods =8-O)

Yeah it's been feeling like everyone is retired now...

RE the marketing around solar powered a/c use - when I asked my rep a few questions about this use scenario the best he was able to come up with was using it to cool the trailer while taking an an hour or so break along a hot highway. Which of course still threatens to leave you in a significant charge deficit by nightfall if I'm doing the math right.

Yes, when carrying the bikes on the hitch mount rack on our van, whoever is driving always makes a mental note of exactly where the bikes are when starting out, and checks that they're still right there periodically while driving. Long ago, we had a strap on one of those trunk mount racks loosen and fortunately by the time we finally noticed the only damage was a beveled bike tire from having been slightly touching the pavement while the wheel rotated. Our current rack is much more secure but for sure you never know. Your notion of an internal trailer camera makes some good sense if we go this way. And though the braking forces will be the biggest factor, I would also not want to underestimate the vertical and side to side forces in whatever design I may use. I've been impressed at what not-well-secured payload items can bounce around when going even at a very modest pace on some of the more potholed roads in the Cascades. In a similar vein I'd suggest anyone putting bikes on the rear bumper hitch of the trailer have a rear view camera. The vertical forces there will be significant even in normal driving. As the Yakima rep explained, much more so than on the bumper hitch of a truck/van/car.

And yes, I'll start a dedicated thread if I pursue this angle. Sorry for the hijack of this thread 🙂

BoB - thanks for the specifics, particularly on how you secure your freezer. John - I do take your warning to heart. Frankly with respect to this thread and on the topic of planning for failures I'd also point back to the warnings I suspect you've seen from the Yakima bike rep about putting the bikes on the rear of the trailer. On top of all the crap that gets on bikes while on a rear rack... Yeah I suppose the resulting damage from failure there may be more to the bikes than to the trailer in case of rack system failure, so at least there's that, but I'd prefer to start with location that has less forces in play - closer to the trailer wheels would in that respect be better than out at the end of the moment arm as the trailer pivots vertically around the axles. Inside our van is another option I'm pondering (the feedback is pretty instant if the attachments there go wrong) but the inconvenience factor while traveling would be a few meaningful steps higher than if they're inside the trailer. Another option is to buy a truck andn put them in the bed under a cap but price is just one of multiple reasons that's also not high on my current list of options to ponder. And yeah I've thought about the inconvenience of having them in the trailer hallway. Locking them to the hitch the same way one might lock them to the rear rack for a night in a sketchy spot is pretty simple. One of my requirements for how we'd position them would be to ensure we could navigate around them if needed during the day (i.e. to get something from a cabinet or to use the bed for a nap -perhaps we'll start wanting to do that but it's never happened yet in 15years of van based road tripping). Any place where I'd put our bikes requires some significant tradeoffs frankly. Life consists of many risks. Thanks for helping me think out the relevant risks here.

I got an RVS wired camera installed 0n/in our camper van about five years ago and it's been great. It stays fairly clean, being up near the top of the rear side (we have a raised fiberglass top) and yet is easy to reach and wipe with a cloth when it does get dirty or fogged, the image is great quality and it gives a pretty decent image even at night. And they used a standard video connection (unlike some other rear view camera vendors) so you can use their screens if you want or you can, as we did, feet it into a stereo/amp unit that has a big screen and have it set up to automatically flip to this video feed when the vehicle is in reverse, and also manually turn to this video at other times. They do of course also make wireless systems. They are the choice used for a lot of fleet vehicles for a reason I think.

Yes, we're thinking along the same lines. Thanks for your great thoughts! So what is it that you use for preventing the fore/aft movement? I know it's not unusual to just anchor the rear rim down to another rail/platform. I could probably get OK with that but I do know that bike wheel rims are meant to handle great radial forces but not so much for lateral forces. This leaves me tempted to guy out the frame (e.g. from near the seat tube/top tube junction) out to anchors on the sides beneath the twin beds (where I was hoping this would reasonably fit). What sort of platform do you use, and do you just count on the weight to keep the whole assembly on the floor and the width of the platform to keep it from shifting sideways? I do worry about bouncing on potholed roads and would like to devise a way to keep the platform(s) down on the floor...

Thanks yes that's how I arrived at the links shared above (also using "van" in place of pickup bed, and a few other search phrase variants). Wood is another alternative to the sorts of "beams" I linked above - in any of these cases the key will be finding a nice simple and visually and mechanically way to be able to securely and temporarily mount the beam for travel and then quickly remove it for living. But yeah there are a lot of options for those little fork mount places, and for wheel mounts as well. I would also want to have a handy and also unobtrustive way to keep the rear ends of the bikes from shifting side to side while traveling. Such as an anchor for guying out to each side, or another place with wheel straps for holding the rear wheels down (though I don't love putting sideways stress on the wheel rims!).

Ha! In the constrained space of our regular sized (with raised top) van, we've learned to make dual use of many spaces in the van (stuff shuffles from bed to front seats etc. as we go from driving to camping etc.).

Nice, and thanks for sharing. Looks easy enough to do. Have you by any chance shared this notion directly with the Anderson folks as a constructive suggestion for presumably a cheap and simple way of improving their product?

Or perhaps more like this: https://www.amazon.com/Swagman-Pick-Truck-Bike-Rack/dp/B00I25NI4K/ref=pd_vtp_468_3/145-7381968-3440240?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00I25NI4K&pd_rd_r=d4858d57-3e6e-4126-83fc-9a6763bf0b36&pd_rd_w=OAwUp&pd_rd_wg=9vH9e&pf_rd_p=4f2ab3e8-468a-4a7c-9b91-89d6a9221c29&pf_rd_r=58JSHK6HB9XK78CZBT4Z&psc=1&refRID=58JSHK6HB9XK78CZBT4Z

This is a bit of a tangential bike rack thought, but I've been pondering how to transport our bikes inside the trailer. I'm not concerned about getting the inside greasy or such - though when on road trips in our camper van we put our bikes on a hitch mount rack (a nice Yakima one that easily swings out of the way of the rear end doors), when doing day rides near but not from home, we typically just bungie the bikes inside our van, and I've seen zero chain grease end up on anything in the van. We'd just need to be careful (more for the bikes' sake) getting them in and out of the door and down the hall to their mounts. I will wait until we have the van at home to sort this fully out, but one notion I want to ponder once I can get in the van and poke around a bit is perhaps cutting one of these to fit down on the floor in the hall and then find a way to anchor the ends such that we can very easily pull this off and put it back on without having any annoying hardware jutting above the floor surface (yes, one more setup and takedown detail when getting to and leaving camps... we're used to this with bikes anyway): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BT7HWE/?coliid=I282OB1WE7OEOT&colid=17RWTP1C3DA5J&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it I don't love the idea of having the bikes on the trailer's bumper, for reasons a former Yakima rep has described well in other bike rack threads here. Being a fan of finding multiple uses for space in a space-constrained glamping vessel (e.g. that microwave? it's also a small pantry cabinet!), I want to explore harnessing the hallway in this way.

Yes, we have learned to make use of soft duffels for clothes, bike gear (helmets, cleated shoes, locks, etc.), and basically anything that can reasonably be held this way, for just the reasons you mention. It only takes a minute to shift ballast around to move from "night mode" (i.e. with back seat folded out into bed with bedding on it) to "driving mode" in our standard size van. We have a few different sizes of duffel bags on hand.

Worth noting that you can always use the microwave itself for some storage. In our camper van, we tend to put the dog food in there along with a few other things such as bags of homemade granola or such. Yes you need to remove these things when microwaving so it's helpful for these things to be few and easy to shuffle around.

Yes, for our van I found a very simple and relatively small and moderate (1000W, yes I know there are even lower wattage ovens out there) wattage oven with no spinning platter, and just a time setting knob as the only front panel control - one power level and that's it. I believe it was a product aimed at the convenience store market. It cost a little more than similar wattage/size consumer units (which also had more involved front panels etc.) but has continued working for 16 years of often hard travel on very bumpy unpaved roads etc. And to my amazement it looks like at least  someone still  has inventory in case  anyone reading this might want to get one (and at a pretty nice  price). BTW we have no solar nor a generator for our van (but it does recharge the house batteries via the alternator under the hood) and have found that our level of microwave use has not been a battery-fatal issue. We do consciously ration it as well as any other use of inverted power. In perhaps a to be regretted twitch I opted for the convection upgrade in our being-built-now trailer. I realize we'll probably only ever use the convection option when on shore power which to-date has been a relatively small percent of our nights camping. But we also love to cook and I was seduced by the notion of having an additional form of cooking available - a slightly expensive gamble on our unknown future.

Indeed. I just figured I'd share my style here for the folks who haven't yet done enough vehicle based camping to determine theirs.