show your bike trailer! and how you hook it up to your bike!
- Thread starter badmuller
- Start date
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I just picked up the beginnings of a kayak hauler that used to be a convertible two-wheel kid bike trailer to three-wheeler stroller. It was really well made and features mostly aluminum construction, 20" wheels, leaf sprung frame and locking axle. I think all it's going to need is some closed cell foam padding strategically added to the frame and some type of connector arm from my bike's rack to secure the nose of the kayak. Other people's garbage score that a friend picked up for me.
The lil
Red hauler
Handcrafted, 2010
So, other people posted years later & got reactions, so someone is still paying attention lol.
This was the culmination of a lot of trial & error. Tried wood trailers first. They worked (ish) but were ultimately impractical. For this one I took the frame from a chainlink fence gate, bolted 2 square steel tubes to that to make the wheel wells, used these wing brackets to hold the wheels in place. I bolted the hitch arm assembly taken from a child's bike & extended it with a piece of round steel tube to allow for longer pieces to be hauled. Then, since my ebike tire has a thicker bolt therefore making a normal hitch coupler impossible to attach, I borrowed an idea from Reddit & took the wheel of a 3" caster wheel base, made a metal plate the size of the flat part of the base with matching holes, & bolted them together on the lower piece of my ebike frame. The hitch arm fits right between where the wheel used to be & the swivel action does the job of allowing some movement that they usually have a spring for. This is trailer #8 I believe. I finally painted it because I think this one is gonna last. The other night I broke down 3 pallets, the heavy blue kind, & loaded the trailer up when I saw a display mattress behind the mattress store that was being thrown out, small stain on the under side but an otherwise unused, practically brand new mattress. So I shrugged my shoulders, threw it on top & ratcheted everything down with straps. It handled it like a boss the whole 7 mile ride home. Thankfully, 80% of that ride is on a bicycle "road" that's a straight shot to 1 of 2 of the roads that go straight to my street, but there was no fishtailing, no jerking, it just rode obediently behind me. So I'm now in the process of painting it & more or less closing it in (I want it waterproof so I can travel with power tools & not have to worry about rain) & then making a 2nd level. It is VERY strong. 26 inch wheels tie it all together & help with the heavy loads, though I may drop to 24" or even 20" at some point & see how that does.
This was the culmination of a lot of trial & error. Tried wood trailers first. They worked (ish) but were ultimately impractical. For this one I took the frame from a chainlink fence gate, bolted 2 square steel tubes to that to make the wheel wells, used these wing brackets to hold the wheels in place. I bolted the hitch arm assembly taken from a child's bike & extended it with a piece of round steel tube to allow for longer pieces to be hauled. Then, since my ebike tire has a thicker bolt therefore making a normal hitch coupler impossible to attach, I borrowed an idea from Reddit & took the wheel of a 3" caster wheel base, made a metal plate the size of the flat part of the base with matching holes, & bolted them together on the lower piece of my ebike frame. The hitch arm fits right between where the wheel used to be & the swivel action does the job of allowing some movement that they usually have a spring for. This is trailer #8 I believe. I finally painted it because I think this one is gonna last. The other night I broke down 3 pallets, the heavy blue kind, & loaded the trailer up when I saw a display mattress behind the mattress store that was being thrown out, small stain on the under side but an otherwise unused, practically brand new mattress. So I shrugged my shoulders, threw it on top & ratcheted everything down with straps. It handled it like a boss the whole 7 mile ride home. Thankfully, 80% of that ride is on a bicycle "road" that's a straight shot to 1 of 2 of the roads that go straight to my street, but there was no fishtailing, no jerking, it just rode obediently behind me. So I'm now in the process of painting it & more or less closing it in (I want it waterproof so I can travel with power tools & not have to worry about rain) & then making a 2nd level. It is VERY strong. 26 inch wheels tie it all together & help with the heavy loads, though I may drop to 24" or even 20" at some point & see how that does.
