I know there are some available, but I cant see spending $600. (Chariot Cougar)

I have been out on the trails with my daughter and realized that she may have lost a few teeth from the rocks. Airing down was not enough, these rocks were 4" to 9" above ground and EVERYWHERE!

I have a trailer similar to all the aluminum kid trailers out there.

Now, I am planning on adding suspension to this to make it more tolerable/enjoyable for her. Any info you may have on this topic would be extremely appreciated.

Ill post up a drawing of what I had in mind and hopefully a pic of the rocks!!

Thank you all in advance!

Chris

Where do you ride?
Contrary to others, I don't think that a suspension is needed for anyone travelling on roads. Not only are there two tires, but the kid(s) sit between the wheels on a canvas seat. When my daughter was by herself, she typically was sitting in the middle and very close to the axle; I installed a piece of foam "mattress" between the seat and the floor of the trailer.


In terms of riding, on roads, potholes were usually hit by one wheel or the other. And on trails that weren't well groomed, I had to ride fairly slowly to make sure I didn't scratch the bottom of the trailer; therefore, at such low speeds, I was going up and down those bumps very decently.

Michel and all...

I will have pics of this trail tomorrow. Ill be riding up to the lake in the morning.

Here is a quick MSPaint of what I was thinking. Ill use off the shelf rear springs from most standard full suspension MTB. My only concern is if the spring/dampener is rigid enough to resist lateral movement, or will I need to fab up another link to triangulate the "arms" and keep them only moving up/down.

Side note:

The wheel will be mounted in the same orientation as original (fore/aft) and I will also plan to have a low spring rate to work optimally with my daughters weight, and amount of travel available.

I will also need to be weary of increasing the CoG too much. its going to be a tradeoff with either CoG and suspension travel.

Not sure I understand. Foam and reduced tyrepressure is the first thing to try. Springs from MTB`s I sm thinking they are much to rigid. Just extra weight.

I had a cheapo trailer for my now 12 yr old son. Seat did not work well. I put a seat from a stroller (the type you can take off, remowe from the wheels) and mounted it innside the trailer. This way he could also lie down becouse you could put in different positions for the back.

you could do the same but attach the strollerseat to the trailer with old bike tubes.

A much cheaper , and well proven, way to suspend a bike trailer seat is
to install a seat of woven leather. Yes, woven leather.

This is the method used in Chariots since time began and will work without
all the weight ,or mechanics, of any other suspension method.

Weaving a leather seat is so easy all one has to do is find the leather and cut
into strips to weave. :thumb:

I have some "suspension" with the canvas seat already.

I have already lowered the tire pressure. This modification is for LARGE rocky terrain.

A MTB spring will be too rigid, yes, but it is real easy to get a spring that is the proper rate for the weight. That is the easy part.

This will be for off-road use with LARGE rocks everywhere (4 inches to 9 inches high) that must be traversed.

There is some down hill and I want to be able to ride it a little faster than crawl and still keep my daughters internal organs where they belong.

I have some "suspension" with the canvas seat already.

Leather stretches, canvas does not. Leather will "work" to dampen the road shocks of dirt and
rocks better than any manmade materials will. Remember, Chariots had wood wheels and drove
on cobblestones or dirt/rocks all the time. Chariots didn't have rubber air filled tires either.

Thanks for your input!

OK...

so Seat material aside, is there anyone who happens to stumble across this thread that may have some insight or expirience with doing something like this?

I think you're something of a pioneer on this one, WJChris.

You'll be the one whose experience everybody else will get to learn from. :)

I guess so!

I have a spring manufacturer lined up.. now I need to find someone who can weld aluminum locally...

Ill make sure I docement the process.

I wonder how many out there would like something like this? I guess the majority of the good MTB trails are single track and not condusive to wide kid trailers.

Either way, I will continue on and report back...