How hard is it to back up a trailer?

See the behind-the-scenes video on @CrawfordsFarm1 and go some support for helping me with this! (lets get him to 20k!)

This week I thought I'd try my hand a farming. The most basic skill I needed to learn was how to back up and reverse a trailer. The aim was to learn to reverse a tractor and trailer full of wheat into Crawford's barn without destroying his farm.

Camera work and thumbnail: @Kim_Norrie

[norman]

The real fun starts when the trailers have two pivot points.

[ninjafiremonkey]

Petition to have Mike learn more jobs around the farm as a series!

[pkopo]

reversing with a trailer is one thing that takes some time to get down but once you do its like second nature, you always just know where the thing is gonna go

[CrawfordsFarm]

Made it look a doddle! Cheers for coming - Legend 🤛🏽🤛🏽

[AxR]

It still staggers me that someone let me do this as a summer job when I was 18. Like Mike, for me it was realising that it was about relative motion between the trailer and myself, and making adjustments to increase/decrease the angles rather than thinking much about what the steering/tractor is actually doing. At some point it just becomes about feel rather than performing a sequence.

[dirtypot]

A trick which I use is to hold your hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and then push your hand in the direction you want the trailer to go in. Want the trailer to go left, push your hand up to the left. The more to push up the sharper the trailer will turn. I've used this to do some very tight turns or into narrow gaps and it takes the guess work out of the equation.

[Vulcan.]

I live on a farm, and I've been reversing trailers since I was like 14 lol (I'm 18 now). It definitely helped learning it before I got super used to driving. Nice video, and good job!

[AIIu_]

As a farmer, it's great to see you making a video on the craft! Many people nowadays forget where the food they buy actually comes from.

[niallr]

my first job was essentially reversing a dump trailer to a mound of soil for 8 hours. I had never reversed a trailer before, so it was very reminiscent of this, just with a lot more pressure!

[ryanwatson]

Backing up a trailer always made sense to me if you picture it like balancing a pole in the palm of your hand. You can move your hand making minor corrections to balance the pole or you can keep it in a controlled "fall" if you want it to move around like if you are walking forward. Like Mike, once that clicked, backing things up became easy. It's great to see people have that "aha" moment.

[gaddebeli]

This was great! PLEASE do a double pivot point trailer next! 😃

[henrypearce]

I've always loved farming even as a toddler, and at nursery I would teach the other kids to revers trailers with the toys there. Now I work on a farm at 17 and get to do it for real!

[Somerandom]

I've definitely never tried anything that large, but learning to reverse with a trailer was one of those things I'm really glad I learnt when I was still really young, so now it's intuitive. My Dad had a ride-on lawn mower and a small trailer for it, I'd "help" him by driving it around and doing trips to and from the house with logs from trees he'd cut down, or I'd bring mulch or tools down the property for him. Best fun ever.

[Moosekeys]

easiest hint I was given when learning to back up was having my hand at the bottom of the wheel instead of the top, and shifting wheel left or right from the bottom coincided with the direction of the trailer. then it clicked and i can chase a trailer around all day now

[AlterOssi]

absolute fantastic video! I also always strugle with my little 600kg car trailer.

[brandon]

Mike, at this point I'm convinced I could watch you learn anything and I'd enjoy it! Hands down top 3 of my favourite youtube channels!

[roboterson]

I remember my first time backing a boat down a boat ramp into the ocean, the ramp had never seemed so narrow, but once you get it figured out it sticks with you for a long time.

[Hymn]

The most insane thing I’ve ever reversed on a tractor was a hay wagon with a joint on the coupler. So it could move left and right where the coupler connected to the hitch AND where coupler connected to the rest of the hay wagon plus the front axel could turn on top of it all, then taking that and reversing it around a 90 degree turn into a barn. I definitely got some gray hair from that.

[firstnamelastname]

I've worked in landscaping for just over three years now. Prior to this job, I'd never driven a trailer before. Now, I drive trailers more often than not, and have taught other employees with no trailer experience how to back them up. Though I haven't played with anything nearly this big!

Anyways, what you said about maintaining the angle between truck and trailer doesn't really make sense to me, but I totally get it anyways. The guy who taught me how to back up a trailer tried to explain it a few different ways, and I just wasn't getting it. He kept making pretty much the same point with vastly different words, and eventually, he found the right description that just clicked for me. Same thing when I'm teaching this skill to others. It's funny how that works.

On another note, very well done, Mike! I've never been in quite this situation you demonstrated, but every day for a couple months each year, I back a trailer out of a barn around a corner rather than into it. But again, smaller vehicle, and a much larger corner. It definitely wouldn't come easily for me, doing what you just did.

[cwestwater]

Found you through Crawfords video now hooked!