diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index da60340111..607eea7548 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -11,8 +11,8 @@ addons:
       - qpdf
 
 env:
-  - NOT_CRAN=true R_LIBS_USER=~/R/library
   global:
+    - R_LIBS_USER=~/R/library NOT_CRAN=true
     # plotly_api_key (for posting to plot.ly)
     - secure: "UAETDsmeXkXm9eUpZa3JTm8/cv+jyLmArXE0TQD0yQNICFNPkGeNergoQmkesRqG+ifLu6V1lPXu1XlqQPdXY60clUHThDN+AjsBmcv9F170k6RtBSV8pIKL9fsW8t0v/maEet86qOSf3cNa5+gK8GjBH1pmLrN2rF9r7RhwUdg="
     # GITHUB_PAT (for pushing to plotly-test-table)
@@ -32,7 +32,10 @@ before_script:
   - Rscript -e 'library(devtools);install_deps(repos = "http://cran.rstudio.com", dependencies = TRUE)'
 
 script:
-  - Rscript -e 'devtools::install(); source("tests/testthat.R", chdir = T)'
+  # run R CMD check on the non-pull request build
+  - sh -c "if [ '$TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST' = 'false' ]; then Rscript -e 'devtools::check()'; fi"
+  # we do some fancy stuff on the pull request build that confuses R CMD check
+  - sh -c "if [ '$TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST' != 'false' ]; then Rscript -e 'devtools::install(); source(\"tests/testthat.R\", chdir = T)'; fi"
 
 after_success:
   - cd ../plotly-test-table
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-ggplot-bar.R b/tests/testthat/test-ggplot-bar.R
index a9e4866909..be35586afc 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-ggplot-bar.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-ggplot-bar.R
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ test_that("For a given x value, if multiple y exist, sum them. ", {
 p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(cyl))) + geom_bar() + coord_flip()
 
 test_that("geom_bar() + coord_flip() works", {
-  info <- expect_traces(g, 1, "coord-flip")
+  info <- expect_traces(p, 1, "coord-flip")
   expect_identical(info$data[[1]]$orientation, "h")
 })