Utility Cycling - Xtracycle AND trailer?

So, I'm thinking seriously about an X, and was loving the idea of the Surly BigDummy, til I saw the likely price. I buy and sell bikes all the time, and could get a suitable bike for an X for under £100 ($200) no problem at all, and then it's a little over £300 for the Freeradical and a pair of footboards. At $800 (£400) for just the frame and fork, the BigDummy just looks really pricey.

The only other question in my mind is this. It seems to me that with a BigDummy, you could haul a trailer behind your X. Can you do that with a regular FreeRadical conversion?

yes. i do. depends on the hitch style, but with more than one brand of trailer it works.

I ride mine that way all the time- kids go in the trailer and everything else goes in the bags.

It's a little long, but I got used to it after about 10 minutes.

Jon

Cool! I don't know a great deal about trailer hookups, and imagined that the not having the real bike dropouts there might be a problem. What the devil is that in your panniers?

I have the frame mount set-up on my burley trialer and it works out just fine on th extracycle- just have to redo the pannier strap over the mount once it's attached and that takes all of 30 seconds.

In the pannier is one of my Monofins- kind of like a dolphin tail that I use when I go freediving.

Jon

yes. i do. depends on the hitch style, but with more than one brand of trailer it works.

What about Bikes-At-Work trailers specifically?

i don't know, eli. i've used but not owned a BAW trailer, many years ago, and i can't visualize in enough detail to guess. BAW might know. i know for a fact that Burley makes a compatible "alternate" hitch, and Wike's works too.

Well, I bought this trailer on the cheap yesterday (around $50 at current exchange rates) to use for now, and when I can afford the Xtra, we'll see if it works!

http://i23.ebayimg.com/03/i/000/84/af/9044_1.JPG

That's a great, inexpensive trailer, Sammyboy. I wish I could find something that cheap around here. Unless you have the skills and tools to make one yourself or get lucky at a garage sale, you're going to pay through the nose for a trailer here. Is this made by a local person or a larger company? I can't tell if that has a side or seatpost hitch.

It seems to have a seatpost hitch (see other thread). They are available on eBay here, shipping from Germany, but I got mine cheaper because it was an unwanted present, pickup only, from a location inconvenient to most, but fine for me. It looks to me like it was made in China.

I would hope that the big dummy comes w/ a complete x kit at $800. That way, it would be about the same price as buying a surly frame and an x separately. It would be pretty cool if they just sold it bare for $500 or so. I imagine that the low #s of frames produced will up the price.

thoughts?

I have used a Burley flatbed with my X with no problems to speak of

The only problem I've found exists when you use a drop-out oriented trailer (i.e. Burley Nomad) with Whatchamacollars. The W's get in the way of the hitch-mounting....