Rural

This seems to be the most appropriate place to bring this topic up. And I haven't seen much discussion elsewhere.

I commute by bike and am about to buy some rural property that will still be within commuting distance. In order to avoid the cliche of the farm pick-up, I've been looking at cargo trailers for my bike. I've basically settled on one of the Bikes at Work truss-frame models. Specifically, I'm looking at the Model 48. It took some looking to find out that they had a 48" model, but they do. Mostly, I haul bulky stuff like manure/mulch for our market garden, produce from the garden, groceries, farm supplies/feed, and sheep. (No, I'm not kidding.) The Bikes at Work truss-frame models seem like a nice fit.

I'm wondering what other folks have experienced with cargo trailers. Any recommendations to a cargo trailer newbie?

super-douper

sorry, i don't even own a trailer, I just want to make sure that when you do haul sheep on your trailer, you post pics of it. That'd be a nice pic.

schiavonec

https://www.toadworks.org/Trailers.html

They seem very reasonably priced compared to all others.

I-Like-To-Bike

My elderly neighbor in Germany used to take his small flock of sheep to various pastures right through the village streets while riding his bike, with his dog keeping the flock together. One spring, one of the small lambs couldn't keep up so the old man just put the lamb under his arm and kept right on slowly peddling along. I don't have a photo but it was quite the picture.

Nightshade

I built this trailer 20yrs ago and use it yet today. All of
the materials were salvaged from jobs here at home.
Even buying new materials the cost wouldn't be that
bad for a really robust durable bike trailer. My cost
20 yrs ago was $20 today might be about $80 with new
wood.

The plans call for 27" wheels but I used 20" wheels from
an old kids bike to be more stable and extended the neck
up a bit to compensate the difference. I strongly suggest
that you find and use an old OAK shipping skid or clear
white oak for the frame to pickup the strength of
seasoned oak instead of plywood.

Enjoy!!


https://www.motherearthnews.com/libra...icycle_Trailer

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CommuterRun

A normal part of my riding includes pulling one of three trailers, but I doubt any of them are what you're looking for.

A picture of a bicycle pulling a trailer loaded with sheep would be cool, but to be truly impressive you'll need a picture of you pulling a trailer with your Guernsey bull on it.

svwagner

A friend of mine has a Bikes at Work truss-frame trailer -- and I must say that it's probably the best trailer that I've seen.

They're very well constructed with an immense hauling capacity (he has the largest one 90+ inches long) with a good hitch design that allows you to lay the bike down without tipping the trailer.

I'm hoping that he'll let me borrow it soon -- need to haul home a new refrigerator.

Rural

Thanks for the comments, both the helpful ones and the entertaining ones.

Although not at all fearful of building things, the hitch is something I wanted to get right. Tightwad's (and others') seatpost hitch had me worried about heavy loads. The Bikes at Work hitch is by far the lowest of the designs I've seen and also looks very well made. Although I could have just bought the hitch, I decided to get the 48" Bikes at Work truss-frame trailer.

I think that the 48" will be a good size for most of the jobs I have planned. If it isn't, I can always build something more appropriate to the task. (I'm quite comfortable working in wood and I'm the drafting/design/computer guy in a small manufacturing firm. I could have the crew do just about anything with metal.) Heck, if the B@W trailer is as well made as I've heard, I'd likely just order another one.

And one of the first jobs I'll be using the trailer for is building a couple rock bridges across some 8' wide and 3' deep water-filled channels on my property. It's about 200 yards/metres of hilly pasture from the rock pile to the channels. Four or five of the biggest rocks will be capacity for the trailer. Something the trailer's capacity won't be the bottle-neck.

My impression is that this trailer with a plywood "truck-box" will be a very useful tool on and around the farm.

attercoppe

Sweet. Nice to see this, instead of yet another huge truck, or even a little Mule or the like.

Rural

So I received my Bikes at Work model 64 trailer a week ago. Until yesterday, I had only used it to haul some wood (for furniture-making) from my parents' garage to my place. It's not uncomfortable or awkward, but I definitely know that the trailer is there. It changes the balance of the bike noticeably, but not enough to be a problem. For reasons of balance, I'm certainly glad that I chose the B@W over a trailer that attaches to the seat post. (The BOB Yak and Ibex would be exceptions.)

Yesterday, I decided to get to work on the first of the bridges on our property. We're currently renting in a town about 9 miles from the property (1 1/2 of which is gravel road), so I loaded up the B@W trailer with three 18 gallon Rubbermaid Roughtote containers (one would have done it), a hat, sunblock, bug repellant, lunch, work gloves, everything I would need to change a flat, a wrench in case I needed to tighten/adjust the nuts on the trailer, and, most importantly, 3 litres of water. The Rubbermaid containers are large enough that I was able to just throw everything I needed in rather than carefully pack a bag.

Without the trailer, I can get to the property in about 35 minutes. It was about 45 minutes with the trailer. The aerodynamic footprint of the Rubbermaid containers seems like the biggest factor to me.

Anyways, I was very conservative at first with loading the trailer. I really didn't want to break the trailer on my first real job with it, and I was unsure about how much weight I could pull up the hills and through the three foot high grass. On my first trip, I took exactly one large rock that probably weighed about 90 pounds. As I gained more confidence in both my, and the trailer's, strength, I began hauling what I'm guessing to be 150-180 pounds of rock per load. This required only a single container centered over the wheels of the trailer. The flexibility of the Rubbermaid containers ended up being a problem. They would deform as the rocks wanted them to, but I quickly learned how to load the rocks so they would behave well and also transfer their weight to the trailer frame without overly deforming the bottom of the container.

The tall grass ended up not being a problem except that it made it hard to avoid rocks, bumps, and gopher holes. This wasn't a big deal because I spent most of my time in my lowest couple of gears when loaded and when unloaded, bumps weren't much of a concern. After a couple of trips, I had a fairly reliable and obvious path through the grass. I did have one incident when I hit a gopher hole that had been dug out by a coyote or badger (in pursuit of a meal). At that moment, I was cruising pretty quickly down a hill but unloaded. For a moment, I was sure I was going over my handle-bars, but through dumb luck, managed to avoid it.

I was surprised how well I was able to pull heavy loads up the hills. Obviously, played the topography to avoid fighting my way up steep hills. I would say a 500 yard round-trip, loading, and unloading, took me about 20 minutes. In the end, I moved about 1000 pounds of rock before I decided I was too tired to continue. I think it will take me two more similar days to finish the bridge.

It was a suprisingly pleasant way to spend the day. The wild-life and livestock were more curious than anything else. Before leaving, I gathered up some baling twine, very old barb wire, and other miscellaneous garbage that was all destined for the landfill. The only unpleasant part of the day was the trip home. I was pretty tired when I pulled into the drive-way. I sure slept well.

I'm sure I'll only grow more impressed by what's possible with a bike, a decent trailer, and a bit of sweat.

Mark

wahoonc

Rural/Mark,
Glad to see you are making it work, it is people like you that are going to have to show others what can be done. We as a country have lost the work ethic and ingenuity of our forefathers. If even only part of the list of issues that surround peak oil come true, we will all need to become adaptable and very quickly. We currently have 40 acres that has been in the wife's family for over 90 years. We are slowing returning it to the family farm state it should be in. I am in the process of building the bike trailer as shown in the Toadworks link. I built the Mother Earth News one many years ago, but did not like the way it handled. Pictures would be an excellent way of showing people what can be done. I need to post pictures of my own when I get the chance I have two utility bikes under construction, one will be a "city" style bike, 3 sp closed hub with fenders, generator hub, racks etc. Then I am building a "tractor" That one is still in the design stage...but I have some bright ideas. One that I have been rolling around in the back of my head is to use a couple of 3 speed hubs, one in the rear and the other in the bottom bracket area. (I think I must have seen it done some where before) lace these up to a strong set of MTB wheels and frame. With very low gearing for dragging the trailer and load around the property. I like the concept of closed hubs for the low maintenance and the lack of items hangning out to be damaged. I have trashed more than one derailuer in a trail setting.
Good Luck with the project(s) and keep us posted.

Aaron

InkyChick

Just a tip:

You might have better luck with your Rubbermaid Containers if you flipped them over and hauled them lid side down. I saw RM containers loaded this way onto a roof rack of a car earlier this summer; and was impressed at the people's ingenuity; loading them upside down gives you a bigger base.

cerewa

flipping the rubbermait containers upside down would give a marginal aero improvement at best- the front-face area stays the same. However, on a car or on a bike trailer designed for that, it would help make them stay put. You wouldn't want to do that if it rained, though, because the container might not stay dry inside.