Towing in Europe

[Knowledgeseeker]

We're just coming to the end of an eight week tour of Portugal and parts of northern Spain using both campsites and wild camping.

We have a 7 x metre PVC and on more then one occasion we had had to take two to three attempts to navigate some hairpins - we usually set the sat nav to avoid motorways/toll roads. Also, we have sometimes found ourselves in VERY small streets in isolated villages. And on one unforgettable occasion in Portugal we found ourselves high up on a hillside in an attempt to access a campsite - the entrance was completely inaccessible to us and we had to forget it but that mean't turning the van around on a road barely the width of the van itself, with cliff wall on one side and an unguarded sheer drop on the other. To give you the perspective when I would look out of my drivers window I could see nothing except the valley way below. That was a very hairy moment.

One of the main ideas when getting a camper was to be able to bring my motorbike with me but after this first experience I'm wondering how I'll manage with a trailer when I come against hairpins needing two to three attempts to navigate them, steeply uphill, never mind the occasions when I need to turn around on narrow roads.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a very experienced driver and not nervous at all, in my younger days I rallied and let us say I was not 'shy' in a car! I've also towed caravans and trailers many times before.

So was it just Portugal or what? How do you all manage and what has been your experience?

 

[cmcardle75]

Sounds like Portugal is particularly bad. However, driving a 7m PVC, you're basically driving a small HGV and you need to choose roads and campsites suitable for HGVs, especially when towing.

 

[Knowledgeseeker]

Thanks for replying cmcardle75 , I'm wondering if part of the solution may be using small scale maps - sat nav and Gmaps I found did not sufficiently distinguish enough between different road sizes in terms of minor roads (speaking specifically about Portugal here) whereas a small scale paper map should.

 

[David and Sally]

We towed a motorcycle trailer around France, Germany, Austria and Italy with our old van which was 7.5m. No problems except when the sat nav sent us down a road that had a tram system on!!! It was a road too but still hairy. If you can set parameters into the sat nav then set them a bit over your actual width/height/lengthfor a bit of safety.

Sounds like you chose some hairy roads!!

 

[Knowledgeseeker]

Hi David and Sally , what sat nav did you guys use? As far as I know the version on our PVC (LWB Crafter) doesn't have that facility and in my experience isn't the best anyway to be honest.

We often had to fall back on Gmaps and that does not have that facility either, also as far as I know.

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[Spriddler]

I had a similar scare driving (solo) round a tight bend up a steep Pyrenean rural road when I had to unhitch my trailer carrying two classic motorbikes. It was a close thing as I had to lift off the 40kg weight of the hitch whilst preventing the unbraked trailer from running away then edging it 200m back down to a passing place by moving my levelling blocks a bit at a time in front of the trailer wheels. I had to reverse the m/h a long way down to a point where I could turn it, then reversed back up to hitch the trailer on. I pulled the rig off the road as soon as I could for a brew to steady my nerves and shaky hands.

 

[David and Sally]

We used a Garmin 395LM which is used on the motorbike. It has an RV setting.

 

[Knowledgeseeker]

I had a similar scare driving (solo) round a tight bend up a steep Pyrenean rural road when I had to unhitch my trailer carrying two classic motorbikes. It was a close thing as I had to lift off the 40kg weight of the hitch whilst preventing the unbraked trailer from running away then edging it 200m back down to a passing place by moving my levelling blocks a bit at a time in front of the trailer wheels. I had to reverse the m/h a long way down to a point where I could turn it, then reversed back up to hitch the trailer on. I pulled the rig off the road as soon as I could for a brew to steady my nerves and shaky hands.

Were you traveling alone? That's the bit that gets me, something coming along around a bend while you're in the middle of the road.............

 

[Spriddler]

Were you traveling alone? That's the bit that gets me, something coming along around a bend while you're in the middle of the road.............

Yep, just me. I did put my warning triangle out 50m up the road around the blind bend but I still felt damn scared......yes, really scared, not only at the risk of oncoming vehicles but also from the possibility of being unable to hold the trailer back when I unhitched it, even though I'd put levelling blocks behind the wheels.

 

[Knowledgeseeker]

Yep, just me. I did put my warning triangle out 50m up the road around the blind bend but I still felt damn scared......yes, really scared, not only at the risk of oncoming vehicles but also from the possibility of being unable to hold the trailer back when I unhitched it, even though I'd put levelling blocks behind the wheels.

It makes me think that, useful in so many ways as they may be, a Motolug (https://motolug.com/) trailer is not the way to go as there's no jockey wheel for instances like that.

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[Spriddler]

A pal has a Motolug that you can disassemble into sections to transport it in a car but it is extraordinarily heavy. You can retro-fit jockey wheels to most trailers but not sure about the Motolug as my pal's has round tubing rather than a square section frame.
I've trailered my bikes a few thousand miles around Europe and that was the only bad time I had but it was enough to have made me very very careful since there's a limit to the advance detailed planning that can be done.
I've always carried one spare wheel and a set of wheel bearings for each wheel (easy enough to fit at the roadside) and although I've never needed them I won't go without them as Sodde's Law says if I did leave them at home I'd need them.
I use a Dave Cooper two bike trailer. About £500:

Dave Cooper Bike Racks

A range of UK manufactured motorbike trailers. These can be built to accommodate single, double or treble motor cycles and quad bikes.

www.davecooper.co.uk