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As regular readers are already aware, I tend to be compulsive about "front-loading" trip preparation. I'd rather be all ready to go two days in advance than be still working on stuff five minutes before leaving. And thus it should be no surprise that I had the car all packed for tomorrow's trip by about 6pm and have a relaxed, leisurely evening in which to take up some last-minute project that really doesn't need to get done.
Actually, the last-minute project has been taken up by the discovery that after I had asked Honda to install a 2" trailer hitch receiver -- I specifically emphasized that it had to be the 2" size and not the 1.25" size because that was the only available size for the bike rack that I was about to buy as soon as I'd confirmed that I could get the hitch installed in time for the trip -- and after I had asked, twice, for the service guy to verify that they had me down for a 2" hitch and not a 1.25" hitch when he was checking me in ... well, you know what's coming next. I went to check the attachment procedure for the bike rack this afternoon and discovered that they'd installed a 1.25" hitch. I called Honda and was a few minutes too late to catch the same fellow who'd processed me Thursday morning, but the one I talked to understood my slightly-more-than-miffed attitude (and was properly apologetic when I somewhat frostily asked him not to address me as "dear") and assured me that if I came in when they opened at 7:30 tomorrow morning they could take care of me, although the installation process might take an hour or two.
So I figure Plan A is drop by Honda first thing and get the right-sized hitch installed and get on the road not much later than if I'd slept in. (Except the likelihood of my sleeping in when I have a road trip is very very small.) Plan B is that some problem prevents Plan A and I simply keep the bike inside the car like I have on previous trips (with the mild added annoyance of hauling around a bike rack that I can't use for the entire trip -- although I suppose I could backtrack to drop it off at home, ok, so scratch that annoyance). But then I start nosing around online and Plan C starts to develop.
Plan C started out because I was trying to look up the part number that appeared on my statement to figure out if they'd written it down wrong in the first place or installed the wrong part despite the instructions. And I start noticing that in every web site that talks about Honda dealer-installed trailer hitch mounts for Elements, the only thing they ever talk about is the "Class I/II" mount, which is the 1.25" one. (Since the bike rack companies all talk about actual measurements, this was the first I encountered the "Class" categorization.) Could it be possible, I wondered, that three -- count 'em, three -- separate Honda service personnel could hear me talk contrastively about "the 2" receiver, not the 1.25" receiver" and have it fail to occur to them to correct me about the availability of a 2" receiver for the Element (should this, indeed, be the case)? If so, this is rather a bad sign about the knowledge and expertise of Honda service personnel.
But in the course of my online searches regarding Element trailer mounts, I discovered that any number of vendors offer "trailer hitch receiver converter pieces" for the purpose of converting a 1.25" receiver to a 2" receiver and vice versa, should one happen to want to use attachments of a different size than one's standard equipment. So Plan C is to stop by some automotive parts store at some point before I want to externalize the bicycle and pick up a hitch receiver converter. If my hypothesis is true about the Element standard equipment limitation, I wonder how long it will take for the Honda folks to figure it out and whether it will occur to them to recommend the converter to me. The prospect now amuses me, which helps make up for my annoyance at being forced to know more than the experts.
Actually, the last-minute project has been taken up by the discovery that after I had asked Honda to install a 2" trailer hitch receiver -- I specifically emphasized that it had to be the 2" size and not the 1.25" size because that was the only available size for the bike rack that I was about to buy as soon as I'd confirmed that I could get the hitch installed in time for the trip -- and after I had asked, twice, for the service guy to verify that they had me down for a 2" hitch and not a 1.25" hitch when he was checking me in ... well, you know what's coming next. I went to check the attachment procedure for the bike rack this afternoon and discovered that they'd installed a 1.25" hitch. I called Honda and was a few minutes too late to catch the same fellow who'd processed me Thursday morning, but the one I talked to understood my slightly-more-than-miffed attitude (and was properly apologetic when I somewhat frostily asked him not to address me as "dear") and assured me that if I came in when they opened at 7:30 tomorrow morning they could take care of me, although the installation process might take an hour or two.
So I figure Plan A is drop by Honda first thing and get the right-sized hitch installed and get on the road not much later than if I'd slept in. (Except the likelihood of my sleeping in when I have a road trip is very very small.) Plan B is that some problem prevents Plan A and I simply keep the bike inside the car like I have on previous trips (with the mild added annoyance of hauling around a bike rack that I can't use for the entire trip -- although I suppose I could backtrack to drop it off at home, ok, so scratch that annoyance). But then I start nosing around online and Plan C starts to develop.
Plan C started out because I was trying to look up the part number that appeared on my statement to figure out if they'd written it down wrong in the first place or installed the wrong part despite the instructions. And I start noticing that in every web site that talks about Honda dealer-installed trailer hitch mounts for Elements, the only thing they ever talk about is the "Class I/II" mount, which is the 1.25" one. (Since the bike rack companies all talk about actual measurements, this was the first I encountered the "Class" categorization.) Could it be possible, I wondered, that three -- count 'em, three -- separate Honda service personnel could hear me talk contrastively about "the 2" receiver, not the 1.25" receiver" and have it fail to occur to them to correct me about the availability of a 2" receiver for the Element (should this, indeed, be the case)? If so, this is rather a bad sign about the knowledge and expertise of Honda service personnel.
But in the course of my online searches regarding Element trailer mounts, I discovered that any number of vendors offer "trailer hitch receiver converter pieces" for the purpose of converting a 1.25" receiver to a 2" receiver and vice versa, should one happen to want to use attachments of a different size than one's standard equipment. So Plan C is to stop by some automotive parts store at some point before I want to externalize the bicycle and pick up a hitch receiver converter. If my hypothesis is true about the Element standard equipment limitation, I wonder how long it will take for the Honda folks to figure it out and whether it will occur to them to recommend the converter to me. The prospect now amuses me, which helps make up for my annoyance at being forced to know more than the experts.
