What Was I Thinking?

Every once in a while, I do something that makes me stop, shake my head, and ask myself, “What was I thinking?”

This is one of those stories.

We have two e-bikes that travel with us on most of our RV trips. We enjoy riding them wherever we go, and our bike rack works equally well on either the truck or the back of our fifth wheel.

When the bikes are mounted on the truck, they partially block the taillights, especially when we put the weather cover over them. To solve that problem, I bought a set of magnetic trailer lights that plug into the truck. They work great, make us much more visible, and give me some peace of mind.

So far, so good.

As we were getting ready for our trip to Texas, I convinced myself that I also needed those extra lights when the bikes were mounted on the back of the fifth wheel.

Our trailer has a receiver hitch, but it wasn’t wired for trailer lights because the hitch is intended only for carrying accessories, not for towing. It’s rated for about 300 pounds.

I didn’t want to start taking apart walls or running wiring through the trailer, so I came up with what I thought was a clever solution.

I’d run a wiring harness along the trailer frame from the truck’s four-pin connector all the way back to the bike rack.

Off to the hardware store I went.

I bought wire, connectors, and everything else I needed, then spent a couple of hours building nearly forty feet of wiring. After bringing the trailer home from storage, I carefully routed and secured everything underneath the frame until I had a nice, professional-looking installation.

I was pretty proud of myself.

The day before we left, I mounted the bike rack, loaded the bikes, and got ready to install the magnetic lights.

Then I stepped back…

…looked at the trailer…

…and started laughing.

The trailer is almost eight feet wide.

The bikes aren’t.

The factory taillights sit well outside the bikes and are completely visible.

I’d just spent time and money solving a problem that didn’t exist.

The extra lights weren’t needed at all.

If you look at the picture, it’s obvious.

Apparently, it wasn’t so obvious to me until everything was finished.

The good news is I now have wiring at the back of the trailer if I ever need it for something else. So maybe the project wasn’t a total loss.

Every once in a while, we all overthink things.

At least I caught this one before someone else pointed it out to me.

That’s a little easier on the ego.

Sometimes the best lesson isn’t learning how to build something.

It’s remembering to step back, take one last look, and ask yourself…

“Do I really need to do this?”