I joined the Patriot Guard last fall and found it to be extremely rewarding. This spring realized that I wanted to fly 3 3x5 flags. Got a lot of good information from other forum members. Lots of good ideas about doing homemade brackets and hardware but since my fabrication skills are poor, I decided to go with the Rivco products. Purchased their trailer hitch and heavy-duty poles. Very pleased with the quality and appearance of the product but was not satisfied with the play I had in the flagpole mounts with three brackets and flags in it. We often travel at 55 MPH down to Jefferson Barracks and was fearful I would lose one of my poles even with extra bungees on them. My neighbor is an engineer, so he has helped me come up with a solution. Will soon have it all together and will post pictures of my fix. In the meantime, I have been doing about one mission a week flying one 3x5 with the socket mounted to the to the trailer hitch. My question is who makes a good durable 3x5 flags. Have also been told take them to a seamstress and reinforce the trailing edge and someone posted here to use a seam sealer on edges. Your recommendations????

 

The two most haunting subjects

Can my flag polls handle the stress and which flags can handle the wind.

I have the Rivco setup on my Road King but I used fiberglass extendable paint roller polls. They are very strong unlike the Rivco polls, yes they are the same size so they fit in the hitch tubes. Then I used a 36" bungee cord to wrap around the pole and hooked it to my luggage rack or backrest. This will keep them from wobbling so much at high speeds and transfers the movement to the bike so it will take a few times to get used to riding this way (for those who haven't experienced it yet). A little jerky at speeds. I did the same poll set up on my trike but with three wheels you don't feel the wobbling.

I painted the polls with a high temp "ceramic" paint. It dries very quickly and will hold up much better than enamel sprays.

Flags... I order my cotton USA flags from Valley Forge and triple stitch the trailing end (although they are tough flags) just to give it an extra advantage. Flags are expensive so buy yourself a sewing machine and learn how to use it. My Singer has saved dozens of flags especially the thin service flags. The best thin service flags I've seen and use comes from Annin. Their grommets hold up very well but like all thin flags you need to triple stitch the trailing ends. Oh, buy yourself a good grommet kit and put a center grommet in your favorite flags. This way you have three points of attachment. The tighter you make your flag to the poll the longer they will last.

Anything over 60 MPH will of course kill flags no matter what you do. Once in Georgia, the Highway Patrol decided to get up to 100 MPH during a cross state escort late one night. The bikes held up just fine but the flags were ripped to shreds as you can imagine. From time to time when my service flags becomes so distressed I will fold it and present it to the family after a service so never get rid of old service flags. Fold them and prepare to gift them to the family. You may be surprised at their reaction of total joy knowing they have a part of the Rolling Honor Guard.

Anyway... here are some pictures.

-W

 

+1 on the Vallet Forge flags, great quaility and hold up well.

As for flying on the highway.... I'd recomend only while on the actual mission itself, not to and from. It's for your safety, the other riders safety and logevity of the flags themselves.

I also recomend stainless safety rings in addition to the regular mounts (where the flag meets the pole), they give a nice layer of protection against it ripping/breaking off and possibly causing an accident. Here is what I use to use.

 

Brian

Do you use those ss rings as a secondary device to hold the flag grommet to the poll? What are you using as the primary? Can you take a picture of yours for us?

This is what I'm using. One on top and one on the bottom. I use a center when hwy speeds are needed. I keep a 5/16th nut driver to adjust the clamp to the flag length since they run different sizes. It's a little bit of work but the flags last longer this way.


-W

 

Almost identical to yours! I have 2 hose clamps on each caribiner, 1 at top, one at bottom. Yes, the stainless hoop is a secondary, just a safety strap if you will, around the pole and thru the flags gromet. I'm kinda paranoid about them flying off and blinding the rider behind me.

 

One other thing I found helps the flags a great deal is fabric glue.
I soak the corner stitches at the trailing end all the way through with a good fabric glue, about 2" both ways. Actually this last time I used Clear Gorilla Glue. It seems to be doing well ! I have had even the triple stitching unravel often. The corner seems to have the worst beating from the wind.
I also limit my flags to 55MPH. If we are going faster I wrap the flags, or just take them off and use the 9"x14" flags on my two antennas. Flags are too expensive to buy every month or two !

 

I got mine here.
’Hurricane Rated’
Has survived several missions at highway speed in downpours.
https://flagsexpress.com/buy-american-flag/poly-max/

As for retention, I cross drilled the mount and pole and use Hitch Pins from Tractor Supply.

 

I second Valley Forge flags and triple stitching all three of the outside edge. I also run 3-4 extra stitches diagonally across the two trailing corners. That one feature alone seems to do more for making the flags last than anything else. As @chopper_man said, I don't fly my flags to and from the missions; only on the actual riding portion of a mission or for static display in the parking lot of a flag-line mission. So far, I'm on my third flag for four years of riding, about 40 missions a year; I'm good with that. I also second the use of a third grommet. I have done that to two of my three flags and it takes a lot of stress off of the corner grommets. If you have a grommet kit, it's always a good idea.

Like Wizard, I have an extendable paint roller pole that holds up well, however, my flag mounts are higher than his, so my pole is a 4' version. I made a pole socket that mounts to the back of my passenger's backrest on my Super Glide and I have a miniature trailer hitch setup on the bottom of my tour pack for my Street Glide, so a four foot pole gets my flag off the ground and it collapses down better so I'm not dragging a bunch of pole through the air on the way to a mission.

I think most people worry too much about a pole coming out. I've heard of a BUNCH of flags disintegrating on a mission and even one pole that collapsed, but I've never heard of anyone losing a pole from the pole socket. I just use a bungee on the bottom grommet of my flag and hook it on the bottom of the pole socket and it's never even budged. I know one guy that doesn't even use a bungee. I questioned him about losing a pole and he said, they just stay right there. Granted, his sockets are a good 18" deep, so there's that. I think we should all have a means to secure the pole, though. If he ever lost one, a lawyer could eat him up because he made no effort to secure it in the socket.

 

Belch... my flag polls are 4' poles that extend to 8'. I usually extend to the forth setting, about 6' on the trike but the Road King has three so I run the center US flag at 6.5'.

It's funny that we are talking about sheading flags... I ran escort for the family of a Georgia Senator to the funeral home yesterday and my "go to" US flag shredded at the lower trailing end. I'll sew in a patch and reinforce it... should be good to go for more missions as I do around 100 a year.

As far as how I retain my poles... Here is a picture. I don't think an ambulance chaser has a chance in proving negligence.

 

I should have clarified; I use a 4' pole extended; it's about 2-1/2' collapsed. I also have a clip in mine, but don't use it much.

BTW, I neglected to mention that my preferred flag is actually nylon. Once you reinforce it, it holds up well. I have one that has held up so well that I may retire it .... because it's beginning to fade and show dark stains in the white areas. It's still got a lot of miles left in the construction, it just doesn't look very good any more.