Utility Cycling - Towing another bicycle

Please check this one out! I towed home my singlespeed on a BOB trailer today...I'd been working on it at my boyfriend's house the night before.
http://conventioncostumes.asyoulikeitkc.com/gallery/albums/my_rides/117_1714.sized.jpg

I am continually amazed at the capacities of this trailer. Some while back, I took all of my recycling down to the recycling center, some 4-ish miles from my house, no problems. I got a compliment from one of the dudes at the recycling center. "That's a pretty neat contraption you've got behind your bike there," he said.

http://conventioncostumes.asyoulikeitkc.com/gallery/albums/my_rides/114_1406.sized.jpg

About once a week I pick up trash along a 5-mile section of the Chief Ladiga trail and use an old Tri Hitch Hiker with a plastic trash can strapped to one side. Occasionally I run up on abandoned bikes so I just use plastic zip ties to strap the front wheel on the other side of my Tri Hitch Hiker that I striped and use as a one-wheel trailer. If the rear tire is flat I just put the front tire/tube on the rear wheel but if both are flat I'll just remove the tire from the rim and just let the rim roll on the pavement.
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r154/n4zou/trailer.jpg

Hey all -

I'm sure this has been covered, but I can't seem to find any ideas/photos of people towing bikes without using an actual trailer. I'm thinking about making a bracket to mount a bedhead-type fork mount to my rear rack (including a hinge to allow the rear bike to pivot up & down). I just thought I'd look for existing products or advice from all you commuters.

My only excuse for not biking to work these days is when I bring a road or mountain bike for rides before/afterwards...I'd like to take that excuse away for good :p

Thanks!

Look up "Trail Gator" on Nashbar or wherever. It's designed to tow a kid's bike with the kid on it and riding. I'm sure it would handle an adult bike with no load, though the angle might need to be adjusted to keep the front wheel off the ground.

This was discussed on a LHT-CC list recently. I think that the best answer was to U-bolt an old front hub to your rear rack. Easy and cheap.

this is what I do

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/440109328_2a8a397dfa.jpg

but I've also seen what you describe. just bolt a fork-mount on a rear rack and you can tow the other bike behind.

Front hub with QR clamped firmly to the rear rack. Broken flanges on the hub are fine. Just remove the front wheel from the bike you plan to tow and put the towed bike fork on the hub axel and tighten the QR. Bungee the front wheel to the towed bike frame. The hub will allow up and down movement and the towed bikes fork will allow rotation when making turns.

This was discussed on a LHT-CC list recently. I think that the best answer was to U-bolt an old front hub to your rear rack. Easy and cheap.

Incredible...that's exactly the type of DIY solution I was looking for. Thanks everybody!

Although at the moment I have the option to borrow a car, I don't like driving at all and only use it if there's really no alternative - which as yet is practically never. As such, I'm looking to find other ways to do things, with my bike instead. My latest challenge is picking people up from places, such as my girlfriend from the station ~4 miles away. I've settled on trying to tow a second bike with my own.

My first attempts involving trying to strap the front wheel of the second bike to one of my panniers, which looked like it might work for a while - until the trailing bike kept falling over, and it became clear that the fork itself needed supporting rather than the wheel. Then I noticed that the forks were roughly the same spacing as my rack, and I came up with this:

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0780.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0780.jpg

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0779.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0779.jpg

That's small bits of inner tube wrapped around the rack to protect it, and one massive bungee stopping the fork dropouts coming off the rack - the little blue bungee is just there because it was lying around, it's not nearly strong enough to hold the bike down. The bungees run up the forks to the brake bosses, wrap around between them a couple of times and head back down again.

I took it for a mile or so ride around the village and it seems to work okay - the only issue is if I wobble the bike at low speed, the wobble needs to be checked quickly else it'll build up uncomfortably - easily avoided. The only improvement I can think of is to move the whole lot back to the next rung on the rack, to try and avoid issues with the pedals on the trailing bike hitting my wheel (or I could just stop the cranks turning somehow).

Has anyone got any comments, thoughts, suggestions as to how I might go about this better? I appreciate a proper clamp for the front fork as used on roof racks etc. would be better, but I'm trying to do this without buying or permanently modifying anything.

Cheers!

:beer:

If it works, it works. It reminds me of a fifth wheel for a truck trailer. The fork of the trailing bike is free to pivot on turns, etc.

Another strip of inner tube would probably be good for lashing the crank to the frame.

I would suggest a fork mount clamp (http://highgearcyclery.com/itemdetails.cfm?catalogId=39&id=4018). Hopefully you could fasten it to your rear rack directly somehow, or maybe to a 2x4 that could mount to the rack. Perhaps it would be easier, safer, and tighter than bungees.

I would suggest a fork mount clamp (http://highgearcyclery.com/itemdetails.cfm?catalogId=39&id=4018). Hopefully you could fasten it to your rear rack directly somehow, or maybe to a 2x4 that could mount to the rack. Perhaps it would be easier, safer, and tighter than bungees.

Yeah, but Odyssey said, "I'm trying to do this without buying or permanently modifying anything". I think his current setup looks pretty adequate.

Yeah, but Odyssey said, "I'm trying to do this without buying or permanently modifying anything". I think his current setup looks pretty adequate.

Whoops, I missed that. Sorry.

Whoops, I missed that. Sorry.

No worries :)

The only improvement I can think of is to move the whole lot back to the next rung on the rack, to try and avoid issues with the pedals on the trailing bike hitting my wheel (or I could just stop the cranks turning somehow).
Cheers!
Just bungee one crank of the trailing bike to its down tube. The cranks will hold still just as if someone were coasting on the bike with their feet on the pedals.

I would suggest a fork mount clamp (http://highgearcyclery.com/itemdetails.cfm?catalogId=39&id=4018). Hopefully you could fasten it to your rear rack directly somehow, or maybe to a 2x4 that could mount to the rack. Perhaps it would be easier, safer, and tighter than bungees.

No, that doesn't work because it clamps too tightly. It doesn't allow up-and-down pivoting as you go over bumps and whatnot.

I actually use the same method as the OP and it works just fine. It seems to work better, BTW, on the middle crossbar instead of the rear. Not sure why. Edit: I now see the OP has two crossbars in the middle. Moving one to the rear might be okay.

No, that doesn't work because it clamps too tightly. It doesn't allow up-and-down pivoting as you go over bumps and whatnot.

Ah, good point, it would need to swivel. Perhaps using an old wheel hub as a mount instead might work(tie wrap?). I guess I'm fixated on a firm attachment. I dislike bungees, they can be dangerous. My friend has a lens implant in his eye because an ill-fitted bungee removed the original one for him. Careful!

Ah, good point, it would need to swivel. Perhaps using an old wheel hub as a mount instead might work(tie wrap?). I guess I'm fixated on a firm attachment. I dislike bungees, they can be dangerous. My friend has a lens implant in his eye because an ill-fitted bungee removed the original one for him. Careful!

I like the old hub idea. But how to attach it to the rack...bungees, or maybe tie wraps. Seriously, though, I have found bailing wire very useful for attaching things firmly to my rack. Then they can be removed with a couple snips with a pair of dikes.

I like the wire idea! Especially since you'd have so many spoke holes to use. Perhaps wiring it to something else as an adapter, and attaching that to the rack. Like, wiring it to a 2x4 that you could then bungee(heh) or bolt to the rack?

Cool idea! I'll have to remember that in case I ever have to attempt something similar.

Thanks for the input guys - the old hub idea sounds promising, and if I ever ended up doing something like this on a regular basis then I'd give it serious consideration. Bungees worry me a little too, I'll make sure I don't have my head too near the large one when I'm hooking it on.

tsl, nice to see someone else has already tested it! Perhaps with the forks on the back it adversely affects handling by acting as a pivot, whereas on the middle crossbar it's above the rear hub so wouldn't have a turning effect. Or maybe the extended wheelbase from having the trailing wheel further back would change the way it tracks around corners... I'll have to think about that one! For now I think I'll leave it where it is and use a velcro ankle-band to hold the crank in place (so long as I don't try to push the bike backwards, although that'd be an interesting test of the shear strength of velcro).

I was looking for a way to carry bikes...

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x25/coutujean/d001524c.jpg

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x25/coutujean/2bb9aa4f.jpg

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x25/coutujean/42431ae0.jpg

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x25/coutujean/5908cb6a.jpg

Rode this 7 kms from my bro's place & not one problem.
Except the yellow bike is way too small for me.

Nice, seems my idea isn't as original as I thought! Even if they do occasionally try and maim you, bungees are wonderful things...

For the record, the execution of my plan worked perfectly, and once the bikes were separated resulted in a great day's cycling in the countryside with my gf - another convert to bikes! The setup was a little wobbly during pothole-avoidance, but surprisingly stable at speeds of ~20 mph or so - far faster than I'd be willing to bomb along on the small-framed second bike on its own (not to mention I look like a clown trying to ride it, yet it's still somehow too large for my gf...)

Heh, no actually you inspired me to try this, tried it around the block and and it worked flawlessly. So I went to fetch that red bike at my bro's place. Still got a semi-vintage Mikado road bike to go fetch (That one's got 27" wheels, 12 speeds and gearing clearly turned for racing, bet I can snag some parts for other bikes)

Well, at some point I wanted to get to the left turn only lane off an 6 lane road and there was a lump of cars approaching from the previous light, so I dialed it up to 400w and waited... After an eventual acceleration, before I know it this thing was going a whole lot faster then I expected, and then it hapenned: it started getting a death wobble. Quickly got a hold of it again, but man that could have been interesting.

Ah, I got confused by the fact your camera tagged the images as 2003 or somesuch :D

That Mikado sounds like a sweet ride, definitely haul it in! Death wobble seems like such an appropriate term, it feels just like that. I just had to make sure I kept up my cadence on hills and kept a smooth pedalling motion, else things got a little awry. Nothing uncontrollable, but very disconcerting nonetheless!

Instead of bungees, use either heavy rope or nylon straps. It won't be perfect, but it should be more stable.

Cool!
;) ;)

This is what I do, sorry for c/p what I put on the flickr page.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1414/597315610_ea27e28d05.jpg
Click on the image to see more pics of it. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/62445097%40N00/597315610/)

This is my lil' brother posing in a glorious way to better show the hitch I just finished making to carry bikes around with my bike on my trailer!

He was courageous enough to lend his bike to the first try. He tried to do some dangerous moves, but it was holding pretty tight.

Basically it's a recycled piece of wood that I attached a car bike mount to. To anyone interested, MEC carries it for about 16$CAD.

Wow!
Definately cool.:)
I've been trying to think of something like that, but got mentally stuck on having to use my Burley Flatbed trailer. Shows ya' how bright I am.:o

But I have two bikes with racks that, that would probably work on.:beer:

Today I took four bike frames with zero wheels down to the local bike co-op, 15 minutes of slow, careful riding away from home. Carried them in my trailer which is a metal frame built around a 45-gallon plastic bin.

My neighbor and I (mostly my neighbor) are continually acquiring used bikes that can be stripped of their useful parts in order to keep slightly better bikes running. These ones had very few parts that would be of interest to anyone, so I suspect the bike co-op will bring them to the metal recyclers.

just get a quick release and mount it on the rack.

http://shostako.com/bikeforums/bikes/biketowing.gif

^ this is how baby bikes are made.


hawt...

don't know about towing. But once saw some real pro type, hooking up another bike in tow with a heavy looking rider. The rider on the second bike was barely pedaling. The first rider was doing all the work for two. Can not a similiar workout be done on a tandem without the rear rider barely exerting him/herself.

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/diff_lock_cr-v_awd/Image006-1.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/diff_lock_cr-v_awd/Image003.jpg
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/diff_lock_cr-v_awd/Image002-2.jpg

The bikes in your sketch look like they're copulating (c'mon guys, admit you thought the same thing :p )

That's Ok because then you get even MORE bicycles :D

Used to have a trailer on a bike back in the 70's, homebuilt hitch constructed back before trailers were very common, but I built the hitch similar to some of the motorcycle hitches that placed the attachment point for the trailer behind the rear wheel and slightly below the axle, used an automotive style CV joint from an old FWD car, (I was a mechanic, what else would I use?) worked great as a trailer hitch, even if it was a bit heavy.
relation here is that I had to 'tow' a friends bike home for him after he trashed the front rim, and it worked out that the forks matched up perfect with the crossbolt on the hitch I made so I was able to loosen it up, slip the forks in and tighten it together.

also, a couple weeks ago, my son, two son-in-laws, and I road out to Campau lake while the girls all drove to spend the day swimming etc, on the way home my son in law had a blow out on the rear that split the tube and ripped the tire bead so there was no patching it.

since everyone we could call was still at the lake or on the way home, we ended up taking the front tire/tube off the bike installing it on the rear rim, then slipping the forks over the rear axle of the other bike so they could ride it as a three wheeled tandem, son and son-in-law rode it 12 miles home, was the funniest sight to watch them get used to it. They got it under control in the first couple miles, and it tended to erode the funny factor so the rest of the trip was pretty much a normal ride.

Ken.

You obviously haven't towed a bike before.

Here are some of my experiences. It's amazing what you can do with a simply rack and electrical insulation tape...

The first picture shows my touring bike with the MTB attached. The front wheel of the MTB fitted neatly between the right pedal and the frame and was secured with insulation tape on the top tube.

The second picture shows how I secured the front fork with simply insulation tape. Four or five rounds of it in each location. The seat was taped across the top of the rack. I towed the MTB around 20km, including 2km on a rough gravel road.

The third picture shows a tandem, a fixie, a road bike and a frame or two on a trailer I built for various duties... it ended up moving my household stuff to storage. It did carry up to six MTBs for training courses at one stage.

The fourth picture is a close-up of the front fork drop-out clamp that I fabricated. It would be easier now to go to a bike shop and get the type for roof racks.

So, yes to the OP, it is entirely possible to tow bikes. For your purpose, a drop-out clamp bolted to the back of a reaer rack probably would be ok. The only problem you might experience is going over significant bumps (gutter crossings), but assuming you have lawyers lips on the bottom of the MTB's forks, you may be able to leave the quick release a little loose to compensate for this.

Yeah, but there's no way that towing another bike is going to be faster or easier than simply riding the bike that you are towing directly. It is one thing if you really need to have two bikes - for example, if you plan on loaning one of the bikes to someone else. But the original author of the post was going to ride the towed mountain bike himself. Surely you aren't saying that you can go faster towing a mountain bike on a road bike than merely riding the mountain bike directly? It's true that on the road bike you would have the benefit of slick tires, but I wouldn't think that that would make up for the extra weight of two bikes plus the trailer.

I don't know about that. With my xtracycle I can throw a bike upside down in a freeloader with the handlebars hanging over the ground and strap the front wheel in the opposite side, it really isn't much slower than riding unloaded and I am guessing that once I put an 8 speed internal on the back and have more than one gear option I will be able to ride just as fast.

That being said, towing a bike with one wheel tracking behind sure is slow.

Ok... It was requested that I put these pictures in this post, too, so here ya go!

Towed my wife's new bike home... 20 miles!

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c269/AzCowboy/Bike%20stuff/S7300146.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c269/AzCowboy/Bike%20stuff/S7300148.jpg

got lots of looks, comments, double takes, pointing, etc...

Even someone calling me a jerk for hogging two bikes and not giving him one! *laughs*

I use bailing wire to attach a hub to the rack... I think it would have worked better with my other rack, as it had more tie-down points... I used two cargo straps to the handle bars to stabilize it some more and keep some stress off the bailing wire. The front tire is strapped to the side of the towed bike using my bike lock. Also put a loop of tie wire around the tire and pedal to keep the pedal from rotating and hitting my back tire.

It handled fairly well, but let the bike move a little too much side to side, so after 20 miles I was pretty tired... I think it would have been better to tie the hub down to a section of 2x4 and tie that down to the rack. But all-in-all it worked very well, including dropping off a couple curbs and cutting across the grass in a couple places.

Now that's just crazy talk right there! ;)

Lunatic fringe anyway. I road it up and down the street. Solid as a rock.(or should I say as the seat post).:)

Definitely thinking outside the square.:)
How many car drivers ran off the road trying to get a second look? :D:roflmao::lol: