Small stacks ride along

How a ride-along works

Every run follows a lane: the 5 through Orange County, the 60 out to Pomona, the 15 over Cajon Pass. A run is planned around its larger stops, the ones that take a good share of the deck, and there is almost always room left over. A ride-along is your small stack filling that room. The truck is passing within a mile or two of you anyway; stopping for six reels adds a few minutes.

In practice, the rule of thumb is about a quarter of a deck. Below that, your stop rides along. A quarter of a deck is roughly 100 reels of 24 inches, 25 of 36 inches, 15 of 42 inches, 6 of 48 inches or 4 of 96 inches. Mixed stacks add up by share; the load planner does the sum and tells you which side of the line you are on.

Where ride-alongs wait least

Dense lanes with frequent runs. The ports lane, the Alameda Corridor, the San Gabriel Valley, the San Fernando Valley and the Orange County 5 lane all pass close to most addresses on them every time they run. Small stacks in Carson, Vernon, Santa Fe Springs, Sun Valley or Santa Ana rarely wait long.

Ride-alongs wait longer at the far ends of long lanes: Temecula at the bottom of the Riverside County lane, Redlands at the east end of the Inland Empire lane, Huntington Beach on the coast, and anywhere over Cajon Pass. There, the truck comes when a larger stop makes the drive worthwhile, and the small stacks ride with it.

On every lane, a ride-along is welcome: it is how a half-full truck becomes a full one.

What helps a ride-along

• Stage the reels by the gate or the street, where the driver can load them without manoeuvring a 53 foot trailer into a tight yard.
• Give a wide window. A ride-along fits around the run's bigger stops.
• Tell us if you can hand-load. Reels up to about 42 inches can be rolled up a ramp; larger ones need a forklift.
• Say if a neighbour has reels too. Two small stacks on one street can make a stop worth planning around.

Ride-along or part load?

A part load is a stop that takes a real share of the deck, roughly a quarter to most of it, and the run is planned around it. A ride-along is a stop the run fits in. The difference matters for timing: part loads set the date of a run, ride-alongs follow it. If your stack is near the line, tell us whether you would rather wait for a passing run or have one planned for you.