We are getting ready to hit the road for the 2024 Tour with some exciting changes.
For those of you that joined us last season, you may remember the new toy – a Triumph Tiger 900 adventure motorcycleA motorcycle designed to go both on street for long distance... More.
It took us about half the tour last year to get really comfortable. Part of the challenge was getting the bike into and out of the back of the truck. Sure, we had ramps but handling a 500lb bike up and down ramps is still a scary. I mean, these things aren’t ADA approved.
Should we go bigger?
For this reason, we started thinking about getting a toy hauler. But that brings about a whole other set of issues.
- It wouldn’t fit in our current RV garage.
- We didn’t want to size up our tow vehicle again.
- We didn’t want to limit the campgrounds we stayed in by size of rig.
- Which means the living space would have to be smaller, UGG.
- That’s a big investment.
- and the list goes on…
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were no hard decisions in life? Clearly that isn’t the case so we agonized over the decision.
And then I got my own motorcycle. A Royal Enfield Himalayan.
And I started practicing riding, a LOT. And I started to enjoy it, a LOT.
There was no way we could take two motorcycles with our current set up. But we still hadn’t found a toy hauler that we really liked. We did discover that Grand Design made a floor plan very similar to our current Reflection 287RLTS but it had only been made for two years in 2020 and 2021.
The Devil You Know
I was still a little on the fence about making a huge upgrade (mostly in cost) and sacrificing living space because we LOVE our Reflection. I was enjoying riding the motorcycle but, let’s be honest… I can be fickle about those kinds of things. It scared the heck out me making that kind of investment and change if I decided I didn’t want to ride much. This was one of those Devil you know situations.
It’s a Gamble
And then we found her. A 2021 Momentum 353G located almost 900 miles away. We still had not actually stepped foot inside one. We didn’t know how it felt compared to ours but since the floorplan was so similar to what we already had, we ASSUMED it would work.
If you’ve ever coordinated purchasing a vehicle from a private seller in another state, you know how challenging this can be. If you haven’t, let me just tell you it isn’t for the faint of heart.
It was going to be a 14 hour, one way, drive to check it out and make the decision. We had already agreed on a price and decided on a date. Knowing our summer Tour was quickly approaching and we’d have lots to do on the “new” rig once we got her home, we didn’t want to delay.
On the way up, we got hit with some pretty strong winds. We were hoping this wasn’t a sign of things to come. But it was just the beginning.
The rig was located in Fort Collins which meant it was winterized. We would have liked to dewinterize before inspecting but we ran into more weather. A strong wind storm was heading over the mountains. The winds, during inspection, were already strong enough that we couldn’t put out the awnings or run some of the other tests we would have liked. And if we didn’t make the deal and head out of Fort Collins by noon, we would have been stuck for another two days waiting for the storm to pass.
So the decision was made and the seller started giving us the official “how to” for things that were totally different. I mean, this rig has auto leveling while ours is just manual. But we were still in a rush because the only way to bypass the wind storm was to head back on I-70 and try to make it through a snow storm that was going to hit the mountains. All this while towing a new type of rig and not knowing how it would react.
Alas, we didn’t make it ahead of the storm but the new rig tows beautifully even in these conditions.
We made it there and back in three crazy days, 30ish hours and now the fun begins getting her cleaned up and set up based on our preferences.
Many more pictures to come when she’s more presentable.