Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Principles of Overlanding: Overland and Expedition Trailers

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Principles of Overlanding: Overland and Expedition Trailers · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined todave by my co
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: host Matt Scott. Now we're going to go into the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: principles of overlanding, overland and expedition trailers, and for that
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we've brought on Mario Donovan. Now, Mario has almost three
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: decades of building, selling, and supporting overland trailers around the globe.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: But there's not currently a conflict of interest for Mario
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: because he isn't currently selling overland trailers. So we go
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: into the deep dive on suspension. We talk about chassis development,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: we talk about the length, the different types of trailers.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We also talk about the importance of electric break but
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: we go into a lot of the systems and a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: lot of the considerations that you have before you buy
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: your first trailer.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: There's nothing better than the greade outdoors, but enjoying the
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: great outdoors can create unwanted odors like campfire, smoke, wet
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: dog and even that pesky musty smell in your gear,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: tents and vehicles. With the push of a button, you
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: can eliminate those unwanted odors fast, safe and effectively. Not
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: a cover up true odor elimination, So go ahead and
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: start every adventure odor free, Get outside, go explore with
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: three Outdoors.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Well, Mario, thanks so much for being on the podcast
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: with us. Again, for those that are listening, we did
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: an interview with Mario about a year ago where he
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: talked about growing up in Ethiopia and his adventures around
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the world. But the reason why you're on the podcast
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: today is because this is going to be the principles
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of overlanding overland trailers. And you were actually the very
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: first person. Martin and you were the first two people
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I ever met that had an overland trailer. And it
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was at I think a sportsman's expo.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Sportsman's Expo in Phoenix, that's right, I remember.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: That, Yeah, And that was that was a very long
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: time ago. And you guys were actually importing trailers from Africa,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that's correct. And then from all of your learnings, you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: actually began producing your own trailers and then you actually,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in many ways kind of revolutionize the overland trailer market
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: in the United States. So we have the benefit of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: having you here as kind of a masterclass on trailers.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: You don't currently make trailers, so there's no conflict of interest,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: so we can speak openly. Now you may in the future,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: but at least at the moment, you don't do that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: And I've personally used your trailers, so as Matt and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: so we know how your trailers worked. So we're going
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to dig into a broad range of topics around trailers.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But let's first kind of talk about the different kinds
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: of trailers that are available to the overland traveler. And
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: maybe we start off with kind of the typical motorcycle trailer.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Now you have a motorcycle trailer, Matt and Mario, you
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: made motorcycle overland.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Trailers, Yeah, we did make a trailing arm or suspension
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: flatbed trailer was for motorcycles.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seemed like, as I recall, the goal
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: was for it to have a wide range of uses,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: so you could, you know, go to home depot with
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: it as easily as you could put a couple big
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: adventure bikes on it. That's what I remember was unique
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: about yours is it would take two big adventure bikes.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a snug fit, but you could do it.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Later on we developed an an alternate version of that
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: where you could put a chaser body on that flatbed cargo.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right, so you can move back and forth exactly.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: You could down both the cargo box and take it
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: off and then you know, all motorcycles.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really clever. Now, Matt, you've towed a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: ton of trailers too. In fact, recently you got some
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: motorcycle trailers for your own bikes. Yeah.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: I mean the thing I tell the most is my
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: race trailer. But yeah, we've got to Honestly, we just
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: have like a little kendon and you know that's a
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: challenge because it's so tiny. Yeah, it's so tiny, real
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: short drawbar on it. And trailers honestly aren't my They're
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: not really my forte.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: But I'll be here for the comic.
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  Speaker 1: We appreciate that you're here for the opinion. I like that.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I like that, And there are lots of pin to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: have around trailers, and I mean we talk about this
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: in the podcast a lot. But the most important thing
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is we're not suggesting that anyone buy anything, because the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: most important thing that they should be doing is traveling.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: If you have extra money beyond your travel goals, then
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: absolutely consider things like heavy modifications or campers or trailers
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: because they can really improve the quality of our experience,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: or make us more comfortable, or allow us to bring
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: more equipment, or maybe we can bring our whole family
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: plus the gear that we need. So there are things
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: like trailers that are really beneficial. So let's move on
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: from motorcycle trailers to the typical overland trailer that we see,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: which is going to be a high clearance cargo box,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes with a roof tent attached. There's been some hybrids
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that have come out that maybe have some integrated rooms
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: and things like that. What have you seen, Mario in
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: that space, Because you guys were really the first ones
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to make trailers broadly available with your Chaser and with
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: your Horizon trailer. What have you really because you've seen
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of change in the last twenty years.
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  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yes, So.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: What have you really seen that you like, what's happening
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in that cargo trailer space and what you think maybe
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: some people are missing.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a good question. There are a lot of
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: cargo trailers out there that are kind of the hybridized,
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: like what we used to do, where we put a
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: rooftop tent on it and that basically served as a
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: canvas for the user to build out the rest the
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: way that they saw fit, so they gave them. You know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: now in the market space, there's a plethora of rooftop
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: tents that could be added onto a trailer, bolting on
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: this piece of equipment or that piece of equipment. It
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: might be propane holders or gas cans and things like
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: that that would be to support the vehicle and the
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: rest of the trip. But now we're starting to see
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: like kind of somewhere in between the tear drop.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: And they're kind of trying to build like these live
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: in trailers that are more of a cargo.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Style canvas walls.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I get a little conflicted with those.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: I mean, not to talk about your stuff, but the
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: thing that I really liked about the Chaser is that
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: it was simple. It was simple, It was light, lightweight,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: It had a lot of volume for storage inside, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: it kind of allowed you really to go absolutely anywhere
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: that you wanted. Were some of these new When I
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: was running the magazine in Australia, we you know, we
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: tested a lot of these things and boy they'd take
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: like hours to set up.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: They can, yeah, they can. Well, the thing what we
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: were doing was basically we were creating a small format
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: trailer for technical terrain. You know, we're talking about towing
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: over the Rubicon, which is where we did our first
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: proving and all of that. But now what we're seeing
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: is the hybridized rvized if you will, more amenities all
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: the way up to like air conditioning and you name it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: That's showing up and that ends up reducing the technical
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: terrain capabilities of those things.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, despite how the marketing may indicate otherwise at times.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So it's really important to know. And we're going to
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: talk about limitations with trailers as we move through these
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: different types. But the cargo trailers, in my mind, they
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: came about because the majority of full drive vehicles in
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the nineties, even late eighties, early two thousands, they were small.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Short wheelbase, narrow wheel drives, that's correct.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So they were you know CJ's, yj's, TJ's, and if
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: you had a family of four series yeah, yeah, there's yeah,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: there's all of these, you know, an FJ forty or
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: take your pick. These were all smaller vehicles. So if
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you had a family of four in a Wrangler, which
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: was maybe your daily driver, and you wanted to go
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: camping for a long weekend, you really did have to consider.
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  Speaker 3: No, you had about enough room to hold a PBJ
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  Speaker 3: between your knees.
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  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I think that that's
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  Speaker 1: what really prompted And even the forerunners of those days
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: were small. These were smaller vehicles, and if you had
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: a family of three, four, five and you wanted to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: take them camping, that's when those trailers really came about,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: is because you needed the space. Now, of course, vehicles
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: nowadays are way more capable than they've ever been, and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: they're also a lot bigger than they've been. So where
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I get concerned around the cargo style trailer is when
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you see the solo traveler or the person maybe with
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a partner and they're in they're in a two hundred
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: series land Cruiser towing one. I'm like, put all that
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: stuff on the car, Like put the rooftop on rooftop
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  Speaker 1: tent on top of the land cruiser and you can
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: fit a drawer system and a kitchen and all of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that and not have to spend an extra thirty forty
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: fifty grand on a trailer.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Exactly and reevaluate, your dear, I really need all that stuff.
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  Speaker 4: I also think sometimes though, people when they're traveling get
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: this vision in their head that they're going to do
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: a lot more technical terrain than they really end up doing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: You know, if you're driving to Eschwa, you're driving across Africa.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: The reality is is you have to you have to
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: balance these kind of risks and rewards.
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  Speaker 5: And I don't know, I do tend to agree with you.
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  Speaker 4: I think for recreational use, these cargo style trailers like
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: I'll use like the Patriot for example. You know, they're
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: really great if you're trying to get somewhere really remote
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: that's you know, moderately technical, and you want to have
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: a base camp.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Right, you wanted to survive the route. Yeah, I mean
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: they're well built.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's.
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: There's just there are places that you cannot take a
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: heavy hard sided camp or trailer.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's where these things I think are really good.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I agree. When we were a few years ago twenty eighteen,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: we crossed Australia with some Australian made hard sided trailers
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and their belief was that we could take it anywhere
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that the land cruisers would go. And I will say
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: that the trailers did make it to the other side,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: but I would be surprised if they were worth twenty
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: percent of what they started on, because no, it's just
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they're tall, and they really do get abused. And I
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: think if you it's like Russian roulette, if you have
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a big camper like an earth roamer, or if you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: have a big trailer like that, if you run into
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a small obstacle here and there and it's not a
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: part of your regular travel, or you run into a
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: little bit of brush here and there. Usually they can
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: survive a couple of those kinds of situations. But if
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you're running day in and day out on technical terrain
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: in very tight conditions, these bigger units are just going
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: to fall.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: You can make a cabinet really strong for the inside,
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: you can make a drawer really strong, but you're still
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: dealing with the things inside that can break. Yeah, you know,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: when you're when you're moving to that kind of hard
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: sided trailer, which again is you know, similar to like
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: an exbission vehicle that I have experienced with, you can
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: only go as fast and as far as like your
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: plates and your your mugs and your cups and your
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: eggs and your eggs and everything can go.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, you don't want the the toilet blowing up
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: on you.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and you're also you're transporting a lot of air. Yeah,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: You've created a really large space to move air. Yeah,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: as opposed to the small cargo trailer, which was designed
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: to be packed dense.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they really are. And I think back the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: one time that I that I employed a cargo trailer
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: for a big trip. It was actually my very first
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: big trip, and I came to Mario and we had
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a conversation about going to the Arctic Ocean in two
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: thousand and seven using the ice roads, and there was
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: going to be three big guys in the vehicle, tons
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of camera gear, very cold environment, so lots and lots
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of clothing, jackets. You know. We really needed the space.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And it allowed us to put a roof tent on
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: top of the of the tacoma and another roof tent
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: on top of the of the of the of the trailer,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and it really was a benefit. And the things that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I liked about it, For example, in a tacoma, you're
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: very limited on payload, and at that point in time,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the tacomas were actually a little bit better. I think
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: mine maybe had fifteen hundred pounds of payload. But you
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: put three full sized guys, you're already chewing up six
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: seven hundred pounds, and then you add some gear, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: then you add some tongue weight from the trailer, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: you're easily at payload for the truck. So that allowed
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: us to carry the additional equipment, the fuel and the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: water and the emergency supplies because we were dealing with
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: minus fifty plus temperatures. So that was a really that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was a really useful situation around those cargo trailers. And
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I think that they're worth considering. I just I just
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: believe it's important because you can spend thirty forty fifty
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: grant on one of these things, make sure that you.
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: It is a little crazy how expensive they've got.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: They've gotten very expensive. And that was another thing that
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: was amazing about the Chaser. I don't know with inflation
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: how much they would cost today.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: I think we started off at I think about seven
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars from Jason.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I remember this pretty well bill.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: You can buy like sixteen seventy thousand dollars cargo trailers
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: that's fired roof tents on them.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, So that's that's shocking.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: But they have diamond plate.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: It's pretty shocking how expense how expensive that has gotten.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: So for me, I always ask, can you integrate those
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: systems into the vehicle? If you've got one or two
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: people normally that that's a yes, that you can integrate
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it into the vehicle. And then well, like you you
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: did with your commanchee, or you've done with so many
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of the tacomas that you've built, where you guys integrate
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: one of your habitats on the top, all of the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: systems go into the vehicle. It's all light enough, it
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: all works, and then you're not trying to back something up.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I remember the first time I was charged by an
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: elephant in Africa, I realized, you know, I just really
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: don't want to toe a trailer that much, especially not
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: in Africa. Right.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Things you only hear Scott Brady say.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Well, or even think about a long shelf road and
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you come across a wash out and now you're backing
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: up for a half a mile. Yeah, yeah, those are consideration.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: The first time I towed a trailer, and I'm not
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: mincing my work, it's like the first time I towed
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: a trailer was on Fraser Island and it was one
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: of I think it was like an Ultimate Series or
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: something they called it, kind of like a boat looking
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: thing that popped open. It was it was fun, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I had to back it onto a ferry onto a
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: beach and I had never backed a trailer before.
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: I'm still terrified of that.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It's tough.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: It's still if you.
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: Want to take a tough trail and make it tougher
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: to trailer, yeah, exactly, that'll.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: You know, I think like the the ideal use case
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: that maybe we haven't kind of covered for. These cargo
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: trailers are are like the weekend Warriors. You know, if
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: you have if you have, you know, one vehicle and
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: you're commuting to work and you don't want to have
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: a roof tent on it, and you don't want to
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: you know, you're putting a bunch of miles on it.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: And let's not forget when you when you put all
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: of these battery systems, water systems, fridge build out all
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: of these things, and you're more likely to wear the
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: vehicle out. You know, if you have them on a trailer,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: you can swap that vehicle out, you know, as mileage
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: goes or whatever. And kind of I'm going to say
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: preserve the asset that is the camping stuff. And I
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: think that that's a really good use case in America
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: for these things because you're really not that limited, you know.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: I think of somebody who say, lives in Phoenix, that
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: commutes to work, that wants to head up to Flagstaff,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: go through the mountains, wants to you know, maybe they're
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: not doing the Rubicon regularly, but they're gonna you know,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: they're gonna encounter mud rocks, whatever. I think this cargo
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: style trailer is really ideal for something like that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: That was our original premise when we designed the our
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: trailers was that they would be these equipment vessels for
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: tour operators so that they could swap out the vehicle
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: for maintenance, but the trailer would take less maintenance than
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: a circle and so they would always have up time
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: with the equipment because it could be swapped from one
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: vehicle to another.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yours was always a backpack with wheels, like it
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: had all of the systems integrated, and you could even
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: leave it and go drive a more challenging trail, come
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: back to your camp, and your trailer hopefully is still there.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: But like like like Matt said, you know, if you
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: don't if you don't have the luxury of having a
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: dedicated built vehicle, and you know, you only have one
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: vehicle and it's your daily driver. You've got to commute
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: to work and all of that. The trailer can start
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: to make a lot of sense where you can just
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: leave it set up with all of your gear, hook
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: it up, and go when you're ready to.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Go, especially with how capable vehicles have become and how
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: like payload restricted they've become to So like you could
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: go buy a new aev GMC, you know, call it
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a Canyon or whatever, fifteen hundred where you're limited on payload.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: But you've got this. You don't even have to modify
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the car. It's ready to go. They can come with
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: a winch, everything you need, and you can lease it
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: even and then hook that trailer up and then you've
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: got your ultimate overland. And like you said, Matt, you
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: just swap out the car after the lease is over
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and you get the new the new color Way or whatever.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Go big with the new HD and build it out.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the new HD is amazing. It's really an incredible vehicle.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I did a nice job on that.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Dave will be here in a little bit about
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: an hour or so.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So the next style of trailer that we see is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a tear drop style, and they they definitely had a heyday,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: probably about ten years ago, I would say so, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you still see a lot of them, but again they've
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: become very expensive. When you when you saw the original
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: tear drops, they were very simple. Sometimes they'd have a
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: little leaf spring suspension, bmaxle.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: They're so cool retro right now, kind of bring in
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: that whole tear drop trailer, you know, moon style hubcap
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: thing and yes, into the off road world. I thought
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: it was really cool.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And I we agree that for a little bit. I agree,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And yeah, who made those?
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: So the bodies were made by so Cal tear.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Drops, that's right. Are they still in business? I believe
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: so hopefully hopefully. I mean they did a nice job.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And I really liked the fact in a tear drop
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is you're you're It's kind of like me sleeping. I'd
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: like to sleep inside my SUVs. So it's kind of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: like sleeping inside the car. It doesn't matter the weather.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you get a little small.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: The thing that I appreciate about those is they're basically
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: the smallest form factor that doesn't necessarily limit where.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: You can take it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: You don't have to have a big vehicle like let's say,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: you know, in Heck. Back then it was the Jeep
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: TJ and the Defender ninety.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: They weren't that fast.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: They weren't you know, they were affected by if you
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: put a big box on the back, you'd feel it.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Where with these tear drops, I mean they were literally
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: a tear drop. They were very aerodynamic, and you had
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: a you know, dry, generally heated place to camp at. Now, yeah,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: but you're still living outside, and I think that that's
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: like an important thing is that you could sleep inside
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: where you were still actually experiencing the outdoors.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, cooking outside.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that whole retro feel with the curve on the inside.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: It was very very welcoming.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought so. And a lot of them had
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: wood so they felt really comfortable. And they've gotten bigger.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: We've seen the tear drops also getting larger and had
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the square drops. Yeah.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: They do get to a point though where you kind
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: of wonder why you wouldn't just go square, Like a
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: really large tear drop doesn't necessarily make sense to me,
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: Like there's almost a size limitation in my opinion as
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: to where they actually make sense. When you're telling a
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: fifteen foot long tear drop, why are you telling a
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: fifteen foot long you know, like a fifteen foot body
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: on a trailer.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: But I think that they're I think that they're worth considering,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: especially if you live in like the Pacific Northwest, or
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you're in an area with a wide range of weather
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and you want to camp year round. They can be
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: really ever for that, and the there is no setup.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: You park and you get out and maybe you level
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the trailer, maybe you don't. You just hop in and
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: next thing you know, you're you're on the starlink watching
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Netflix with your partner, and you know it's life's easy.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: So I think that that's a pretty clever setup. I've
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: always liked the tear drops. There's some new companies on
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the market, like the Escapod who's doing this. It's kind
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of it's a molded composite tear drop, so it's very attractive.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But again they're getting very expensive too. They're getting over
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars for a tear drop. You know, they
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: are really comfortable. Get a heater in there, and.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: It's as crazy because you can buy like a forty
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: foot long fifth.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Wheel for that.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the difference.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: It'll make one trip.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: That's the difference is like that. And you're right, Mario,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: I and I think that that's really important. Be very
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: careful going and buying something that looks like an overland
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: trailer but it's really a lifted standard Yeah, RV travel trailer.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: There's such a difference I think in quality between these
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: these overland specific trailers in the general RV industry.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: Absolutely take it from me as a manufacturer. Quality costs money. Yeah,
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: that's the only way you're going to do it.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's going to hold together. I mean just
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know, there's plenty of places I've showed up, you know,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: in even five miles of corrugations, and you'll see these
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: people be talking about their cabinets falling off the walls
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and everything else like that. I mean, they it can
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: be very very difficult on them. So buying something that's
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: really made to go overland for long periods of time
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and hold together.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: There's the.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Drop.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the kind of off road looking tear drop trailers
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: that you see on so many RV dealer lots now.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: And I'm going to kind of group them all together
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: is like the what is it elk cart Indiana that
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: manufactures most of this stuff pretty much, You know, you
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: really do have to do your research. And also I
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: think you just have to have a gut feeling. I mean,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: people know when something's made well and when isn't made well.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's giant and it's got two bathrooms and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: it's got a washing machine and it weighs thirty six
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: hundred pounds, right, yeah, exactly, it's just not going to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: hold together. The frame's going to break, something's going to break.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: An axle flip and a larger tire and some diamond
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: plate doesn't cut it.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we see that a lot, so you have
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to really be looking for that and talking to people
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: who own them. Find owners of those units, see what
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: success that they've had. Just because something's rebranded for overlanding
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it's appropriate for it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Find the users group, follow what people are saying. And
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: most of the threads are about repairs.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, good. Yeah, Whereas like even though like something
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: like a Patriot can get expensive, you don't hear about
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: them falling apart. So they're very very well made. So
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I think looking for that kind of stuff and tomorrow.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Your point is that if you want a high quality
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: unit that's going to hold up. There's a reason why
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a land cruiser is expensive. There's a reason why a
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: trailer likes that is expensive is because it takes a lot.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Kuat Racks for their support
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: of this week's podcast. Their new Ibex has landed. It's
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: actually overlanded. This groundbreaking bedrack is effortlessly handling substantial loads
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: both on and off the grid. Constructed from lightweight yet
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: durable aluminum, it boasts a ballistic black powder coat made
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: for all the nature you can throw at it. It's
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: available in six different frame sizes to accommodate most truck models,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and it's equipped with telescoping crossbars, numerous t channels, and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: a versatile full and half height configuration. Right out of
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the box. This is the Ibex from Kuat. It is
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: engineered for adventure. For more details, please visit kuot dot
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: com kuat because you will absolutely love this bedrack. Teardrop
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is definitely a category that we've seen grow. It was
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: very popular and now there's fewer in the market, but
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: they still are worth considering. If you're trying to do
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: four season camping in as small of a trailer footprint
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: as possible. I think it's worth considering. And then now
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we come to where we're seeing a lot of the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: current growth and a lot of the current interest, which
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is in the travel trailers that are built for surviving
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: at least some off road use. And what are you seeing?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts around that, Mario? I mean, this
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: is like you're seeing the brewders and you're seeing the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Explorer trailers, and these are very premium trailers. But they're big.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: They're big, yeah, and well, from my perspective the way
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: that I like to travel, I'm going to encounter technical terrain. Yeah,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: so the sheer size of them makes them problematic for
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: my own yeah purposes right, Yeah. I mean if you're
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: blasting desert beaches stuff like that, where you you don't
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: have to worry about that, I think that's fine. But
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: I do worry. Even though you know they are made
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: from composite materials and the lightest, you know, possible designs,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: it's still taxing for something like a two hundred, and
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: they're typically they're wider than you know, the like the
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Australian vehicles and the European vehicles they're going to be
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: wider than that, so track width doesn't match.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Then you have more rolling resistance, especially in sand and mud.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Particularly in those situations. Yeah, pretty easy to get a
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: trailer bog found, So I see that as problematic. Those
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: are the types of trailers that I think would be
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: better suited to be towed by a full size where
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: the track width is closer and you've got bigger tires
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: and a ton more traction to the ground with the
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: tow vehicle.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And a lot more power, a lot more I noticed
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that when I was towing one of the large travel
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: trailers behind a GMC fifteen hundred and it was it
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: was an eighty four x so lock for in rear
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and we've been camping for a couple of days and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it's raining and raining and raining and raining, and I'm like,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: we're not going to continue on. We got to get
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: out of here, and the terrain was it got really greasy,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and I was shocked how difficult it was to get
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that trailer out of there with a very capable platform. So,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: I mean it was just pull in the back of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that full sized truck around in the mud because there
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: was so much resistance, So it's definitely it's important to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: note that they look very capable, and I think in
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: the right conditions they are perfect for a lot of families.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: But if you're going to go into technical train or
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you're going to get really remote or maybe you don't
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: have a lot of experience towing, you probably want to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: get some training before you do that.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, probably a good idea. Yeah.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: There's also a lot of these trailers that are you
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: know we touched on before that are very much these
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Fouverland trailers. They're coming out of traditional Arvy manufacturing techniques.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: They do a spring over on the act soul so
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: they ride a little bit higher. They throw some diamond
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: plate on the front, they'll put some kind of lawning
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: on it that looks a little bit more you know,
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: off roady, and.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: Don't forget the cool topographics.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: So there's those, but you know, generally those things are cheap,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: and you know, they're probably just for people that are
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: looking to get a you know, a mile or two
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: down the forest service road, and you know, for that
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: use case, they're probably fine. The things that are really
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: interesting to me because I saw the advent of these
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: when I was working in Australia. Are all of the
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: Chinese made Campra trailers? Now, you know, I don't want
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: to just like bag on China. You know, are the
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: iPhone comes from China. There's good there's good manufacturing there,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: and I'm sure that there are examples of companies that
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: are doing you know, decent manufacturing, but most of them,
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, you can just go on Alibaba and buy.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: So you're seeing these companies come in. They're buying you know,
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: trailer that were sold fifteen years ago in Australia. They're
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: still being sold, you know, Like I think, well we'll
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: just not name names, but if it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: Looks too good to be true, it is. It is.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Have a look on Ali Baba and you can kind
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: of start to see, I don't know, they're fascinating.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't sell something for half as much as
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a high quality unit and chalk it all up just
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to the labor cost. They're doing other cost cutting because
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: they still got to ship it, yep, all the way
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: from China too. So you really you got to make
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: sure that whatever unit you're looking at, like Mario said,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: typically these mass produced units, there'll be some group on Facebook,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: there'll be a there'll be threads on expedition Portal. Go
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: on there and see how people are doing with those
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: units before you invest fifty sixty grand of your kid's
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: college fund into it.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And if you have the opportunity, you know, like
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: for us here in Presco, if you want to see something,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: go see the manufacturer. If you can't, yeah, ask them
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: for a plant tour. Yeah good, idea, Right, you're going
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: to learn a lot.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah good.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: If they're proud enough to walk you around their facility,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: that's a good sign.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I like that's where I don't know if
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you ever had a chance to go through Brewder, but
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: like Browder in Australia, you can see like every one
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of them is built kind of like an expedition boat.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: There are some things about the layout that I don't
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: care for, but the quality is certainly there, and the
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: price point reflects that. The other one that I've seen
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: come into more prominence recently is that, like the Explorer
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: trailer which I've been using, they make a fourteen and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a half foot box unit that is my current favorite
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of the of the travel trailer style because it has
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: a double bed, it has a dry bath that you know,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you got a full size shower, and you got a toilet,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and you got a kitchen, and you got heater, and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: you got one thousand and eighty amp hours of lithium
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and one thousand watts of solar. So these things are expense.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: One hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Is what the system costs more to make than a
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: lot of these Ali Baba trailers.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah. I looked up those batteries
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and it was eighteen thousand dollars in batteries. So and
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you're right, that's probably how much some of those other trailers,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: just the trailer costs.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: That's what quality costs.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're seeing better quality units available. Are there
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: any others, Mario, that you're seeing You're like, I kind
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: of like what they're doing. Is there on any of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: those class of trailers that you think you kind of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: like what's happening? And if the answer is no, that's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: okay too.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: So there's a couple of brands that that I've always
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: found interesting because they're innovative, Like Bruder is innovative. I'm
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: not copying something that they saw and putting a spin
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: on it. Brewder has done their own thing. Their suspension
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: is brilliant, right, that's all cool stuff. One of the
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: brands in Australia is called the Ultimate Oh, and I
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: think they cut their teeth maybe in the marine industry,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: very boat like with sort of like a transom entrance
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: and I thought that stuff's very interesting.
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: And I think one of their tech lens is that
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: it could float.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: That's awesome, right. And another brand which I'm not sure,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: but Tracks right, so Tracks was kind of like this
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: geometric pod shaped sort of reminiscent of a tear drop
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: but not but with a drop transom and I think
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: ARB is doing something either with Tracks or they bought
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the IP or something like that.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: It's very cool how it opens up like that, it
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: opens up.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: So what I like about it is the form factor
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: of being able to do technical terrain because it's dense
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: when it's when it's shut down right, transporting a lot
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: of air. The downside is you do have a lot
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: of setup. You know, when you get to wherever you're going,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: you've got to drop that platform and set up the
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: tent and all the canvas that goes with it. But
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: those are innovative designs.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think that ARB one is very interesting.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: And the fact that you can have minimal set up
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: where you literally just drop the back and it, you know,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: opens up that canvas and you open up a couple
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of rods and you're done, so maybe less than a minute.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: That is what it looks like.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: The form factor is what speaks to me in those.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's important for those that are listening to here.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Is you know, I have started because I would typically
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: want to sleep inside my vehicle, or when I'm traveling internationally,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I would not want to tow a trailer. But when
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I'm in North America, I found myself I want to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: work in the vehicle. I want to spend weeks maybe
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: traveling or months traveling. So I have found myself wanting
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it to have a heater, a place to sit and work.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: If it's got a shower and a bath room, it
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: usually up ends up being like, if I'm going to
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: toe something, it better have hot water shower. I guess
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: is my view just being totally honest.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: If I'm if I'm towing stuffing, it's gotta it has
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: to at least have the door, you know, I don't.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: I don't really want to have to set things up.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, personally, you know, I think I think one thing
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: that I'd like to bring up is, you know, before
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: we went to the exhibition vehicle thing, we were looking
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: at trailers, and when we even then progressed into the
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: exhibition vehicle thing, we learned that the layout of the
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: trailer becomes such a personal thing.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: And that's true. That's why you.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: See, let's just hop back over to the r V space.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: That's why you see so many trailers, like how many
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: different you know, twenty four foot travel.
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: Trailers are there on the market.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: Squills squillions, right, but I'm not gonna say that they
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: all sell. But the reason why squillions exist is, oh, somebody,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: one person wants twelve bunk beds, and there's a company
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: that specializes in that.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: One person really.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Just wants a place to hang out in a bathroom
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: and you know, a bed will fall down and.
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: They don't really care about the bed.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: Really, really consider and look at as many trailers as
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: you can to figure out what that form factor is
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: and make sure that you actually spend some.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: Time in it.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, you're likely not going to be able
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: to sleep over night in them, but spend twenty or
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: thirty minutes just sitting in it, because you might find
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: that the that the dnet is too close to the
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: kitchen and where you're sitting somebody's bumping. India, you might
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: find that you don't want a dinet. For example, we
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: didn't want a dynet. You know, we're larger people and
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: oftentimes these dinets are you know, pretty small, not useful.
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: You just that is a thing that I cannot stress
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: enough is you have to find the layout that works
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: for you.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Well to your point, Matt, that that's really really important.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: And we have the advantage here in North America where
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: there are several rental services, like on line services where
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: you can actually go out and rent. Oh that's a
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: smart you know. It's like buying a car, rent at
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: first for you know, and and get a feel for it. Yeah,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: the same thing with a trailer. You can probably rent
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: one of those online and take it out for a
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: weekend and really get a sense ergonomically does it fit
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: you and your spouse and your dog.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a great idea.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Get a feel for it first before you make that commitment.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, that's really smart because some of these
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: things are they're very expensive. Some of them are easily
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: six figures, So spend some time in it exactly.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: That's why we used to rent out our camper so
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: that our customers could try the camper first before. Yeah,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: that's even that commitment.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: That's even where like the RB shows are are super
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: interesting to go to. Typically at those events you're not
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: going to get the quality of trailer that we're really
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: talking about. But you know, the quality of the wood
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: doesn't matter when you're really just trying to figure out
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: what layout you want. Do you want the bedroom in
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: the front, do you want the bedroom in the back.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: You want a wetbath? Do you want to dry bath?
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: These are the things that you really have to consider.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Are you going to cook a lot inside, well, then
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: you might want a larger kitchen. Are you primarily going
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: to cook outside? Maybe you want an outdoor kitchen. Like
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of just you're creating like this little
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: habitat inside. And I think part of buying a trailer
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: like this a larger unit is so you can spend
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: more time in it, and that means you're going to
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: be an inclement. Whether that means when it's cold outside
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: and you have a heater, you're naturally going to kind
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: of go inside.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Make sure it's a space that you want to be in,
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: and also make sure here's here's the other thing. The
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: size of the doors matter. If you're tall.
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: There are so many of these trailers that you will
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: skin the top of your head getting into.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Believe, look, look at the top of my head. Yeah,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Mario two.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: If you guys don't have any protection, I just have
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: thinning protection.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, go to an expo. That's where you're
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: going to see.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the overland expo is going to have all of them.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And also a good chance that you'll have a
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: weather event and get to.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: That's so true. I think that I think that the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: trailer and camper companies always love when weather comes in
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: because they sell a whole lot more units because people
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: are like, oh, yeah, I want to be able to
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: escape inside. So those are those are pretty much the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: trailers that we view or the types of trailers that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: we view as being feasible for overlanding. Certainly there are
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: things like fifth wheels and everything else like that, but
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: they tend to not be appropriate for anything beyond just
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a regular gravel road. And they certainly aren't going to
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: be appropriate for international travel.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: I mean you do see some people take fifth Like
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: when you go out in Arizona, you see some fifth
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: wheels in some places and you're like, how did what
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: did what?
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: We got a different level crazy?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we absolutely do. So now let's shift a little
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: bit Mario towards does den criteria things for people to
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: look for, and one of the most important ones, and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: you really help define this in the space, is long
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: travel independent suspensions. So let's talk about suspension and the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: different types of suspension that is available on the market,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: from kind of worst to best. Of course, worst being
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: those torsion style suspensions. Talk a little bit about why
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: that's a bad idea.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: Well, if we're talking about a conventional torsion axle, which
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: basically has four rubber inserts inside of a square two exactly,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: they shrink it with nitrogen and then they slide the
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: arm in the challenge with those, First of all, it's
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: pre load right, it's set for a certain weight, so
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: there's no adjustability for your cargo changing. And then there's
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: actually a vulnerable spot on those where dirt and dust
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: can migrate into the the cavity where the rubber inserts
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: are and what ends up happening. Washboard road, as we know,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: will find the weakness in your vehicle or your trailer
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: and destroy it. Right, So what ends up happens that
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: grit gets in there and that it starts to wear
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: away at the rubber inserts and eventually grinds the rubber off,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: and then the whole system will fail and it'll rotate
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: ninety degrees, sure, drop your suspension, and worst case, the
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: whole axle hub assembly will come out.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Have you seen it come out?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't know that. I thought that that
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: was somewhat captive, but no, that's insane.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: Only thing holding it in there is those rubber.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Inserts well, and then you have other considerations around it.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So they have very minimal travel. So people will be
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: driving let's call it a two hundred series, which is
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: very comfortable eight to ten inches of suspension travel. They're
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: zipping down the road. They've aired the tires down and
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: they're two hundred and they're flying down the corrugations with
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: eight to ten inches of wheel travel, and one of
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: those torsion style axles has a couple inches under full load,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: so they just everything inside that trailer your eggs are
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: going to become scrambled with the shells included and everything else.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: That's what we learned early on with the trailers is
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: just how destructive limited wheel travel can be exactly exactly,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: and then it's your contents, right.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: And then another thing is a lot of times people
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: forget to air down their trailers.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so and go way lower than you think exactly.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And Mario, since we're talking about that, what are some
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: techniques that you would recommend people do to know? Because
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I have mind that I've used, but I really like
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: to know yours. When you want to set the trailer
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: pressure for the road and when you want to set
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it for off road, how do you normally recommend people
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: go about doing that?
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Well, for the road, I'm talking pavement, go as high
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: as as practical, because then that'll give you the least
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: amount of rolling resistance, right, so you'll have improved mileage.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: But when you hit the dirt, first thing you have
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: to remember, if you have like electric brakes, you have
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: to reduce the gain on those breaks because you don't
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: want your trailer tires locking up, which they will. The
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: difference between pavement traction and dirt traction is huge, and
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: I see people make that mistake a lot. A general
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: rule of thumb that I'll use for airing down tires.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: I never say it's a set PSI because it depends
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: on how you know the tire, how heavy you are,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: et cetera. So what I tell people is, if you
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: were to look at your tire at street pressure, let's
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: use a round number. Let's say there's ten inches of
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: rubber between the rim, the bottom of the rim and
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: the bottom of your tire on the ground. Deflate until
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: you see a twenty five percent decrease in that overall height.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: That's generally safe in that area in terms of your
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: side wall, but it will increase your traction patch significantly,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: give you better braking, better floatation over you know, soft stuff.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: So can it also becomes a part of the suspension.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: It starts to dampen some of those impacts.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Precisely, particularly if you have God Forbid atorsion axle some
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: other elastomer axle system. But that's my general rule of thumb.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: It's regardless of your weight. Yeah sure, it's shape, yeah,
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: because that's what we're looking for is shape.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, Yeah.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Not necessarily a PSI, And it may vary. Your PSI
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: might be different on your right tier than your left
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: tire based on how that trailer is loaded.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's good. Yeah, that's a really effective way to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: determine pressure. And another way to do it is based
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: upon rim diameter. If you want to if you want
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: just a place to start from, if you've got a
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: sixteen inch wheel, go down to sixteen psi. If you
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: have a seventeen inch wheel, go down to seventeen psi.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: That's a good place to start from. And then that
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: would maybe get you closer to what Mario's talking about
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: of that twenty five percent reduction in the carcass height
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at the sidewall of the tire. So
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: between those two you can use that as a foundational
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: starting point for airing down. But airing down the trailer
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: is really important because of what Mario is talking about
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: rolling resistance on the road. You want it to be
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a higher pressure because we want to get better fuel
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: economy because there's a big fuel economy hit with a trailer, absolutely,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: and then when you're on the trail, you want to
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: make sure you're taking care of floatation, improving your breaking effectiveness.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And then also reducing the amount of impact to the contents,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: because even if you've got a long travel suspension system
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: on the trailer, the same reason that you benefit from
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: airing down in a long travel car, you benefit in
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: airing down and a long travel trailer.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's great start, Mario. So next type of
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: suspension that we'll typically see is going to be your
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: beam axle leaf sprung. That's a very common form of suspension.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: It's much better than the torsion in many ways, you
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: have some reduced ground clearance because of the beam that
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: goes across the entire length or width of the of
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the trailer.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: True, some some axles do have bent beams to give
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: provide a little bit more clearance.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Yeah, I haven't seen that. Well, that's
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: that's good to know. And a lot of times they'll
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: be supported by leaf springs and they may or may
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: not have dampers. So how would you say, what would
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: you say in your experience is kind of the best
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: way to configure a leaf sprung beam style axle.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: For for a leaf sprung axle system, we would want
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: to see spring over axle and we want to see
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: the springs as long as they can possibly be, and
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: as flat as possible, and as flat as possible. Now
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: you're going to get the most travel, you're going to
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: get the most compliance to the terrain. The challenge with
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: beam axles, though, is whatever happens on the left wheel
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: gets transmitted across the beam to the other to the
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: other side right, So you're going to see this bouncing
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: around regardless, and ultimately you want to see shock absorbers
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: on it.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I agree, And that's what's usually missing.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, is data to control that rebound. When a trailer
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: manufacturer takes an off the shelf cargo suspension spring system
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: and puts it on an off road trailer, they're doing
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: it into service because those springs are really short because
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: they're designed for high load capacity, not for complainings, and
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: for road and for road right smooth pavement. They're not
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: designed for corrugations, you know, potholes and all of that.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: So that's that's good. That's good advice. Good advice there.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: And then we have a new kind of suspension that
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: we've seen in recent years. It's been extremely popular because
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of its durability and it's kind of a mid travel
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and that's going to be the timberan suspension, so it
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: has limited travel, it has no no damper other than
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: the the derometer of the rubber helps to control some
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of the rebound and some of the compression. The advantage
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: that people are fining with it is it's independent and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: it's got a little bit more travel than you would
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: find it in a typical torsion see.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: Has more travel and has more ground clearance because you
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: don't have a beam going across, so similar ground clearance
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: to say a torsion axle, Yeah, which is typically a
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: forty five degree down right, Yeah, And that's what the
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: timberand does. The other advantage the timberand has is that
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: it does have a longer arm versus a torsion axle.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: Torsion axle typically I don't know, maybe ten inches and
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: then on a timberand I haven't looked timber lightly, but
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: you're probably doubled that.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the longer the arm, the more effective travel
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you have, even if there's less in the joint itself.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Exactly exactly and what have you found are any downsides
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to that suspension in your experience.
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: It's going to be preload. It's going to come down
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: to pre load. If the manufacturer didn't work with timberand
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: effectively to define the lustomer derometers of the top side
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: and bottom side. They may have missed the mark and
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: not really tuned the suspension to the trailer.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the same the same challenge that you have
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: with whether it's a torsion axle, a timbran or a
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: leaf sprung is is there enough variability for in the
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: suspension for the load. Yeah, and that's why we went
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: to air suspension because we could adjust when that right,
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: you always adjusted for wheel travel and you set wheel travel.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can also then level the trailer if
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: you have a if you have a tent on it,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: you can level it in camp. I always like that,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and you can have some adjustment for ground clearance. You
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: can actually if you're if you're in really technical terrain,
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: you can lift the trailer up a little bit to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: give it some more clearance.
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. If your load is is static right, doesn't change
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: at all, and you've chosen one of these non adjustable suspensions,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: then you have an opportunity to tune it just right.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Like there are some trailing arm suspensions out there that
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: are coil sprung, right, coil sprung, limit straps, bomb stops,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: you know, shock absorbers. But if they're tuning it well
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: to the exact load, then that's okay. Yeah, but I
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: think I think there's just too much variability in the car.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you carry you know, when the trailer is empty,
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: and then you put one hundred gallons of water in
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: some of these larger trailers.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: You take one hundred gallons of water with you.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I have one hundred and seventeen gallons. I take, like
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: my thirty minute showers.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I want such a diva.
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: After drinking my rosea.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: No judgment, No judgment, diva.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I have found though that those kinds of suspensions, they
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: can be very durable, they can be much less expensive.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: But then you start to get into these much more
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: reminiscent of vehicle style longer travel trailing arm independent, coil
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: sprung or air sprung. There are some real advantages to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: air suspension on trailers, and that's most around leveling. So
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: it's just so convenient to be able to level your
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: trailer and camp with the air suspens.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: To pick wheel travel being consistent well travel over leveling.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Leveling is a nice amenity.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe it's like the gadget factor.
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: It's the Yeah, it's definitely the inspector gadget. But being
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: able to have a consistent compression and extension from where
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: your sweet spot is. Yeah, Like in our suspensions, we
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: allowed for sixty percent compression forty percent extension, and that
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: was our sweet spot. And so when we told you
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: to adjust, that's what you're adjusting to, so that you
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: maintained that wheel travel regardless of how you were loaded.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: You could be empty or full.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: If I remember, you were even really clever in that
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: inside your wheel well, you had a either a sticker
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: or something that showed you your static load height. I
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: remember something like that where you could Yeah, or at
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: least maybe you and I did that together. For we
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: did that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: We did that together.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: But that was pretty clever because then no matter how
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: much I changed the weight of the trailer, I could
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: just add a little air and it would get it
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: right back up to that to that level mark.
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: We wanted you to get the air spring into a
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: certain shape, yeah, because that's where it's prime operating range was.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: If you were overpressurized or under pressurized, you went outside.
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: You know that bell curve of premium performance.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense, all right, So let's talk about
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the next element of good trailer design, which is going
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to be wheelbase of the vehicle compared to the drawbar
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: length of the trailer. The reason why this is important
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: is if you have a long wheelbase vehicle with a
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: very short drawbar length, which think of the drawbar length
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: as the distance from the towball or from the coupler
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the multi coupler to the first axle center of the trailer.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: That the shorter that distance is compared to the wheelbase
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: of the tow vehicle, the more difficult it will be
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: to back up if it is too long. Then when
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: you make a tight turn with the tow vehicle. Let's
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: say you have a short wheelbase wrangler and you have
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: a very long drawbar, then the trailer tires will take
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: a different path than the tow vehicle, which could be
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: very problematic in technical terrain. So, if I remember correctly
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: around the chaser and the horizon and those trailers, you
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: guys matched it very much towards a TJ, a Wrangler
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: or a shorter SUV kind of wheelbase.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: We were trying to match the wheelbase of the tow
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: vehicle as closely as possible.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: And so those are also track with those adjustable drawbars
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: can be helpful, or working with the trailer company to
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: make sure that the drawbar is the right length so
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: that way when you tow it, it's not too short
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: where it's difficult to back up, or even if it's
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: too short, it can take a different path than the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: tow vehicle tires as well. But you certainly don't want
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: to be really long because then it's very difficult to
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: navigate off road.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: Another key thing for design is that you need to
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: be able to do a full ninety jackknife on a
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: trailer without having the vehicle or the trailer contact each other.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: That's how we designed our tongues. And then also do
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: you have enough clearance when you are doing a drop off,
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: because you don't want the front end of that trailer
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: coming into the back of your tow vehicle, particularly as
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: people like ad spare tires and you.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: Know they bolt on max tracks and trashs and everything.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Else, so they end up extending the back of the
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: vehicle beyond the ball or the tow point on the
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: on the tow vehicle, and that reduces their their departure angle.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden to go into big
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: drop off and all you know, they've got the trailer
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: punching out the back window of the tow vehicle. So
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: you have to have a long enough tongue to be
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: able to do that ninety as well as.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because I guess where most people will triangulate the
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: frame directly into that you know, the hitch or whatever
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: we're calling it. You on the Chaser trailers had that
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: kind of extension out from that trying.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Exactly since yeah, we did that on the on the yolk.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: And then let's talk about track width of the trailer
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: and why that's important.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: If your track width of your trailer matches your toe vehicle,
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: your advantages. You reduce your rolling resistance, right, and when
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: you are in certain types of terrain, if you're too wide,
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: trailer is going to come to the inside of your
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: of your turn right. So while you may have just
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: barely made it past past a rock and then cut
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: that turn, well, if the trailers too wide and too long,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: now that that same side is going to be right
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: into that obstacle, and that could be a problem if
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: if it means it's going to if you have to
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: ride the trailer up over that obstacle. It may be
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: so far that now you're potentially getting into a rollover
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: scenario with your trailer.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: Which brings me to another subject is you need to
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: have an articulating coupler.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: And what are some of your There's so many on
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the market, now, what are some of the ones that
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: you like and why.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: The track is good? Out of Australia, they were one
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: of the firsts with They have a poly block at
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: the coupling point and that poly block helps absorb impact
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: from the trailer moving back and forth. And they have
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: a full three sixty rotation one hundred and eighty vertical articulation.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Any any kind of coupler that does that. But it
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: is important to where those pivot points are positioned because
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: if the pivot points are not in the right sequence,
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: and we've seen this with a couple of brands, if
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: the pivot points aren't in the right.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So they can bind, they will bind.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: And when you bind, as we know, something's got to give,
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: so either something's going to band or break. So it's important.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: We used to use that Quamco and we worked with
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: Quamco originally to kind of get that you know, dialed
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: in and we used a lot of those for a
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: long time, the max coupler.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and those are very reliable, simple.
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: Or reliable simple small form factor lightweight. Some of them
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: are very are very heavy.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they were SA tested to standard that the
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: jay I can't remember the test numbers now, but they were.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: That test is breakage at three times what the rating is.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: So let's say if you had a two thousand pounds
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: coupler rated for two thousand pounds, it actually failed to
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: test at at three times.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: That got it.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So that gives you that that cushion in that
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: situation where you're just completely abusing your trailer coupler.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: Sure, and a lot of times people will have a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: standard ball on something that is classified as an overland trailer.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: They can be useful for very simple conditions, but once
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you get into technical terrain, what ends up happening is
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: that the ball is incredibly strong. So if the trailer
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: starts to roll, something else is going to give. It's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: going to bend the frame of the trailer, it's going
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: to bend the whole coupler component, or it's going to
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: bend something on the vehicle. Very dangerous.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: The worst scenario is it pulls the vehicle over. Yeah,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: and the most precious cargo is parked right in your seat.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: You want that trailer to roll. You don't want your
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: vehicle to roll.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have a mutual friend that was
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: HEMI powered JK trailer in tow drifting around the corner
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: and I think the trail did a full rotation back
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: on the wheels and he never let off. I don't believe.
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I took a radio call to get him to stop.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: So you want you want the trailer to roll for
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: that exact reason, you don't want it to You don't
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: want it to pull over the toe vehicle. So it
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean like absolutely don't consider a ball, but consider
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: your application. If you're going to be using it in
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: technical terrain, you need to have the ability for the
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: trailer to to make that full three sixty. But then
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: that also brings into consideration the pintile hook. So pintils
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: have been very popular in the military. They're very easy
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: to attach, they do allow for quite a bit of movement,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: particularly through ditches and everything else like that, but there
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: are two problems. They don't allow the trailer to roll over.
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: Actually there are rotating pencils on the trailer side. Oh yeah,
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: probably available, Those do exist. Yeah, the challenge those those
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: are speed rated.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're incredibly loud.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: There's incredibly loud, and you're really not supposed to go
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: over fifty miles an hour with them.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Oh see, there's that's some good information for people to know.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're used a lot like in agriculture, right, yeah,
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: you know the military trailers precisely.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you ever tow one off road that
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: kinkine ca caine, ca caine, I mean, yep, you will,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, you'll want to leave the trailer. Good, you
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to leave the trailer. So there the things
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: have evolved. There's some great technology out there. So look
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: look at the couplers. You're going to want to make
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: sure that the trailer that you have has a high
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: quality coupler on it that does do some damping of
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the sound and also allows for full range of motion
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: off road, including the trailer being able to roll over
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: completely without pulling the toe vehicle with it.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: Since we're kind of touching on that, you know, potential
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: for rollover and things like that, and speed ratings. Yeah,
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: I cannot stress enough that if you are towing a
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: trailer off road, slow down because you don't have the
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: same level of wheel travel with the trailer, all right,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: and so people who have a tendency to you know,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: hot foot it through the washboard and whatnot, you may
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: be in for a nasty surprise. And particularly like when
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: we talk about the technical terrain dropping off of ledges, well, people,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: if you're bringing the vehicle off the ledge and you're
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: dropping off, you want to go half the speed that
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: you did your vehicle with the trailer once it hits
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: that drop off as well, because you don't want it
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: to bounce. Particularly if you have an articulating coupler. You
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: may have been able to get the vehicle through and
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: then you bounce the trailer and then your trailer flops
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: over because you have that articulating coupler. So you've got
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: to slow down.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: I can speak from personal experience where I screwed that
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: up horribly. This was very early in my travels. I
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: was in Mexico, I'd gone through the altar and I
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: was done with the trip. The trip was over, everything
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: had gone beautifully, incredible adventure, and I'm pulling onto mex
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: two with the tow vehicle, which no problem. I was
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: in a little bit of a hurry, and I pulled
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: up onto the road big. You know, every highway in
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Mexico has a giant drop off, so I was going
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: up the drop off, and as soon as the little
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Venturecraft trailer that I was towing hit that edge, it
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: rolled it up over onto its top in the middle
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of mex two, which is terrifying and dangerous. There's no shoulder,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: so and we had to get winches and get it
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: rolled back over and we got traffic stopped in Mexico.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, it was mildly terrifying, especially early in
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: my travels. And that was precisely because I went too
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: fast and I forgot about I was tired long trip,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: forgot about the fact that I had a trailer behind me,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: and just one wrong move and that thing launched itself.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Also Torsion Stars, Torsion axiler. Yeah, they were really neat
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: little trailer. That was my first overland trailer A long
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: time ago, twenty probably twenty five years ago. I bought
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that thing. Yeah, it was very it was very cool.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: All right, So let's let's kind of go into trailer
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: breaks as we start to kind of wrap this up
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit, but trailer brakes are really important and
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different kinds. So Mario, let's talk
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: about the different kinds of trailer brakes and which ones
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: you prefer, and let's talk about some techniques that people
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: can employ with their trailers with electric brakes.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: Sure, so you have surge brakes, which are typically hydraulic
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: or lever operated, and then you have electric brakes, which
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: are controlled in the vehicle by some type of an
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: inertia sensor. And then you also have hydraulic brakes, which
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: are typically controlled by a inertia sensor as well. So
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: you have those three styles that we are most familiar with.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: Surge brakes, we don't like them on off road trailers
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: because they take control away from you. They operate by themselves.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: You have no way to provide input into those other
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: than to completely override them, so they don't work. The
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: hydraulic units we wouldn't commend on an off road trailer
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: unnecessary complexity and.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: Also more expensive too, aren't they more expensive?
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: And there's just certain things that you don't want to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: have that involved in, like if you are so far
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: cambered that your reservoir's gone past the past, the fill
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: tube and things like that. So we don't recommend that
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: we do like the kind of old school shoe brake
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: electric electromagnetic style, because those are easy to control and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: adjust from inside the vehicle, they're relatively low cost, easy
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: to maintain, parts are ubiquitous around the planet, and it
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: allows you to do things on the trail that you
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to do otherwise, like decide to turn
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: your brakes off completely on the trailer, or to use
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: your trailer brakes to lock the tires on the trailer
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: when you're backing up so that the trailer jackknifes sooner
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: than it would if you were just trying to push
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: it and roll it into a jackknife. That can be
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: really good when you get yourself in a pickle on
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: a trail and you need to turn around.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Right, I've seen you do all these things.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: That's awesome, exactly.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: So another one I like that you taught me was
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: going down extremely steep slopes.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you're going down an extremely steep slope,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: maybe it's very loose, it might be sandy shale whatnot,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: and you're coming off that drop off it gives you
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: that opportunity to not use as much braking action on
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: your toe vehicle and to engage the trailer brakes and
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: basically serve as a drag anchor like a parachute anchor
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: on a.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Sailboat, like a drogue.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, like a drog same kind of thing.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: And if you ever encounter trailer's way might be road conditions,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: that might be cargo, might have shifted wind, something like that.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: While you're driving down the road, you can engage that
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: trailer break separately and it'll take the sway out of
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: the trailer immediately. It'll just pull it straight. Yeah, do
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: not hit your vehicle brakes when that happens, because basically
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: when you hit your vehicle breaks, you shorten that wave
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: and it'll start to encourage more sway as you hit
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: your vehicle brakes. But it just kind of grab the controller,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: grab the controller, hit it, and it'll it'll straighten it
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: right out. Imagine if you have a rope and it's
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: this wavy rope, and if you just grab one side
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: and tighten it up, huh, what happens.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you take this Yeah, you take distance out of.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: It exactly, So that's a really good technique. And maybe
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: you're being stupid and you're going too fast down the
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: highway and you suddenly see a highway patrol officer and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: you don't want to see your brake lights just at
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: your trailer brakes.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: No, that's a good one. And the other one that
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: I've seen you do with great effect is shortening the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: turning radius of the entire rig by dragging the trailer
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: brakes around it like a switchback, for example.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Yeah, that's that scenario we were talking about earlier
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: where the trailer wants to come around the inside of
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: that corner, you know that obstacle that if you hit
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: the trailer brakes, it will lock the tire and it'll
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: keep the trailer from climbing that obstacle, and it'll force
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: it to drag around because you've locked it and the
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: wheel can no longer turn.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it won't climb the obstacle.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: And I've watched you do all that. You've taught me
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: all of those techniques on the on the on the trail, Mario,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: and I've used them all to great effect. So learning taking,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: you know, finding someone who can teach you a little
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: bit about trailer driving. That's a rare thing to find.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of the manufacturers don't have that ability, but
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: you know, just make sure that you do some research.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: There's some good information out there on the web even
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: about towing with the trailer off road. The other thing
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that you want to consider is your toe brake controller.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: There are some that are designed for off road use. So,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: for example, red Arc makes a trailer brake controller that
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: has algorithms built into it for off road use. You
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: can actually set it to an off road setting. And
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: then some of the more modern vehicles, when you hook
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: up to a truck that has integrated brake controller from
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: the factory, like a GMC or you know, Toyota's got
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: him now whatever, then it works with the vehicle stability
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: control to help manage the sway and it also helps
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: keep the trailer breaks from locking up. So there's actually
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: been vehicles that I've tested towing a trailer where the
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: ABS on the vehicle also worked as abs on the trailer,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: which was its off the gain on the electromagic exactly.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: So it's very clever how it all works together, and
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: it keeps getting better and better. So, Mario, what's your
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: favorite kind of trailer. Like for you, if you were
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: to right now build a one off Mario version, what
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: would you what would you go with?
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, man, I get that's that's going to depend upon
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: the end goal.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: You get to pick. So my favorite hot tub, hot
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: tub trailer, hot.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Tub and wet bar. Yeah, we're done. Maybe an inflatable
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: palm tree.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Were we talking about, Paul may here?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are. It comes with a little flip flop holder. Yeah.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: You know, when I'm when I'm out and I'm supporting
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: a group of people, I really like my dense cargo
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: trailer because that's usually what I need. I need to
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: carry more gear than I can in the vehicle, and
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: so that's nice if we go out and we do
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: a motorcycle trip and you know, guys come along with
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: six helmets and four pairs of boots and whatnot. Sure,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: so that's pretty nice to have. And typically I'm gonna
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: be toying that with my truck that already has camper
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: on it. So that's the self contained vehicle. So if
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: you have the self contained vehicle, but you need to
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: carry more gear, go with the cargo, right. But if
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: you don't have the self contained vehicle, I don't know.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: My utopian camper would be the a Tara camper.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: There you go, right on a trailer. Yeah, sure that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: would make sense.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we even had this crazy idea of putting one
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: on a pontoon boat. But that's enough.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: Podcast r out there overwatering.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: I like it.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: And how about for you, Matt, if you were if
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: you were to not be, I know, don't cry if
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: you were not if you were not going to be
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: in the earth roam er what and you don't have
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to answer the question.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: You can just be.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: You can just be.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: No, put it on a trailer. Cut the amazing, right, Yeah,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: we get it, we get it, we get it, we
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: get it. Motorcycle trailer No, no, I mean I think.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: The trailer that to you.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: I don't have I don't have a particular brand other
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: than probably like the twenty four foot airstream.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hold their value really well?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just for me, it's yeah, like I really
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: wouldn't toe off road that much. And you can still
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: take an airstream down and dirt road.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: Chris Cordees did it.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's there's some suspension systems and stuff for them.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: I really like the airstreams.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: I think they look cool.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: I think they're decently made a little bit better than
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: the usual.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: I also like good resale too, I like the bruder stuff.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: I guess what I'm trying to get at is something
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: in that like twenty four twenty six foot enclosed space
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: for me, because if I'm going to tow, I have
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: to have the benefit.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Of some comfort.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's a forest road trailer.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I like that fourteen fifteen foot box
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: with a with a dry bath. Those are pretty nice.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well you combine that with the tongue, now
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: you're about the same length as a toe vehicle dealy
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: in that twenty foot range.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that we've been using that fourteen to five
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Explorer trailer and it's it's.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 5: Got a lot of power, and it's really nice.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: It's got air conditioning and it's like I can work
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: in that thing. I can take it to be my
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: mobile office. So it's kind of like, now that I've
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: gotten used to the sailing, it's like that's about an
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: equivalent of a sailboat kind of experience for me. So
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I think it works out pretty well. But I've also
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed towing smaller trailers and you know, being able
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: to go to the Arctic Ocean with the chaser that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: many years ago, and you and I crossing El Camino
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: del Diablo with the very first trailer I think we
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: actually and that may have even been the same unit.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which. I think it may have been
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: trailer number one, but or maybe you had a prototype
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: before that. Yeah, but we ended up we ended up
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: doing El Camino del Diablo with the trailers. So, you know, Mario,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: we really appreciate you taking the time. Trailers are something
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that people consider a lot for overland travel. As we
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: always talk about on this podcast, make sure that you're
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: spending your money on the experiences for you and your
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: family before you spend the money on the gear. But
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: if you have extra cash and you really want to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: have some extra cargo storage, or you wanted like Matt
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: talks about, leave it in the garage all ready to
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: go and you just get to back up your vehicle
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and take off on your trip. Or if you want
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: to have that toilet, shower, air conditioner, that domidor whatever,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: that's all possible too. So Mario, thank you so much
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: for taking the time with us today and sharing your
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: experience if people want to find out more about you,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Mario and maybe even be able to reach out, how
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: would they contact you?
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: Jeez, just Google me or go to atoverland dot com
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: and we're always available.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You guys have been doing this for a very
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: long time.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we sure have. It's been great.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome, Mario. Well, thank you so much for being
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: on the podcast, Matt. Anything else other than everybody should
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: buy an Earth Romer.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: I mean I didn't say that, but I said that.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: All Right, We thank you all for listening and we'll
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: talk to you next time.