Having a bicycle trailer is essential to my car-free lifestyle. I have a great trailer, a single-wheel with a seatpost hitch. I am finally doing some actual work on my first homemade trailer - it will be wider and lower to the ground, for larger, heavier, or just more unwieldy loads than my other trailer can handle. The thing I haven't really worked out yet is the hitch, and I could use some advice from those who have built their own trailers (or anyone else with good ideas).
The base of the trailer is a (modified) golf cart caddy, so two wheels on basically a single pole. The handle of the cart curves around and ends up perpendicular to the rest of the "body", and considering the height it's at when the whole thing is laying parallel to the ground, it points right at my rear axle, similar to a Burley-type hitch. The question is, how to attach the cart handle to my axle without a specially machined hitch mechanism?
I'd love to see pictures of how others have hitched their homemade trailers - even if it's not really the same situation as mine. Also if anyone wants a picture of what I'm doing, let me know. I'll certainly post pics when it's finished. Thanks!
cerewa
04-15-06, 12:22 PM
My hitch is made out of tire tube. My trailer's tongue (http://dictionary.com/search?q=tongue) thing is a metal tube that runs forward to the left chainstay- I drilled a hole, wrapped my tube around it a couple times to protect the bike from the trailer, and then forced the bolt through the tire tube (holds the tube in place), pulled it through the metal trailer-tongue's hole and then through the tire tube once more.
Probably best to wrap the tube tightly around the seatstay in a figure-8 rather than straight around, as that will hold the trailer more securely.
The thing I like about the tube-based hitch is that tubes are stretchy, meaning that you can stretch it around the chainstay and its flexibility will keep there from being any play in the hitch, but at the same time it won't slip around and it's extremely strong. (I think the number of layers of tube that support the trailer tongue in the picture can hold 150lbs comfortably, which is way more than it needs to support since most of the weight is on the wheels.)
attercoppe
04-16-06, 09:18 PM
Thanks for responding, cerewa, but I'm not quite getting it. Do you have a good picture of the trailer hitched to the bike? To unhitch, do you have to completely remove that bolt?
cerewa
04-16-06, 09:54 PM
I'll take a pic and get back to you.
r-dub
04-18-06, 01:14 AM
Lots of info here:
http://bikecart.pedalpeople.com/
aaron (the designer) is a friend of a friend and is incredibly helpful in bike cart related issues. The paper version of the book is great to have around and to give to friends, too.
cerewa
04-28-06, 01:28 PM
Here are the overdue pics of my trailer's hitch.
The trailer seems to have no problem whatsoever with side-to-side give in the hitch, but there's some give in the forward-rear direction so that hitting the brakes will make the loaded trailer move forward relative to the bike.
The way I have it now, it seems to be able to move forward about a quarter inch to a half inch. Other schemes of wrapping the tube gave it about an inch of movement range. Neither is a huge deal in my opinion.
attercoppe
04-28-06, 10:21 PM
Thanks for the pix, cerewa, that really helped. I can see how your hitch works now. Not exactly quick to unhitch, is it?
mingmaya - there is a folding bikes sub-forum, that's probably a better place to ask your question, since it's more specific to folders.
mingmaya
04-29-06, 07:01 AM
attercoppe thanks for the suggestion. I took your advise and posted there. Best Wishes!
r8ingbull
04-29-06, 07:48 AM
Hi all,
I'm new to this forum and to cycling. I found this forum through an exhausting google search about hitching trailers to folding bikes. I have a pretty much no-name brand folding bike (Easy Cruiser) . I've attached a picture of it. It doesn't have a triangle for a trailer hitch to attach to. The wheel is not a quick release.The diameter of the axle is 10 mm. I want to attach a Burley Bee trailer to it---is all hope lost since their alternative hitches are 9.5mm and 10.5mm? I apologize if this is a silly question, I just didn't know if anyone knew of a trick to make this work out somehow. I would really appreciate any light anyone can shed on this for me. Thanks!
The 9.5 can be drilled a tapped for 10mm.
mingmaya
04-29-06, 08:52 AM
r8ingbull, thanks so much! I'm not familiar with tapping(I know what drilling is of course) but I can bring the hitch to someone who might be able to help. It's funny because I contacted Burley directly and when I mentioned 10mm ---their response was "bummer!". They were very nice though and said they hope it'll work out for me somehow. I guess they just have to go by the book--so to speak. I'm very excited now that there seems to be some hope! Thanks again!
I-Like-To-Bike
04-29-06, 02:02 PM
I'd love to see pictures of how others have hitched their homemade trailers - even if it's not really the same situation as mine.
Not homemade but bought cheaply in Germany several 7 or 8 years ago. I don't know how easy such a hitch would be to fabricate or if similar ones are available in the States. The setup works fine for me. The bungee cords keep the plastic box from rattling in the frame; the duct tape on the hitch takes excess slack out of the connection. Yesterday I delivered 76 empties to the recycle/redmeption center, then went to the Supermaket and came back home with 6 12 packs of soda pop as well as a 30 pack of beer.
Thanks for the pix, cerewa, that really helped. I can see how your hitch works now. Not exactly quick to unhitch, is it?
mine is quick to unhitch. All of that wrapping around looks complicated, but all you have to do is pull the two pieces of tube off the bolt and around the seatstay together and it's off. takes 3 seconds. they tube is held on to the bolt by its own tension.
cerewa
05-01-06, 02:17 PM
In other news, I think that for reliability, I'm going to want to glue some extra tiretube rubber on like a patch to reinforce the part of the tube that goes over the bolt on the left side of the hitch. Aside from needing to do that, I think my trailer is completely ready to go. And none too soon, too. My partner's car now emits a bit of a gasoline smell when driven; it even did that when I moved it one block for street cleaning. We'll see whether the car is worth repairing. If it isn't, I think we'll become new phillycarshare members.