KC8QVO

All,

After a 12 day trek with my Disk Trucker + panniers and dry sacks I am looking in to making a trailer. I met a fellow tourer on my travels that uses a trailer and spent 3 days with him on the trail. Between hauling gear the way I was and resupplying on the trip I think the trailer idea makes more sense. It is less load on the bike frame, lower center of gravity, and easier to balance on the bike. Weight is weight, I realize - especially going up hills. So no matter where the weight is it is something that has to be dealt with, however the extra wheels offer a big benefit to how the load is supported - more axles to distribute the weight over.

A few questions/topics -

1. I have seen a ton of creative ways of making hitches - from castor wheel frames to universal joints to simple eye bolts and pins. My first thought was to use a ball joint threaded rod end - the plain kind with a simple hole in the ball portion - and a pin sandwiched between two metal tabs. However, this might be too limited in the roll direction. The trailer the guy I rode with used a Burly hitch - the bar on the trailer up to the mounting bracket on the bike. That hitch uses a rubber part that flexes at the bike end of the hitch bar. I am not sure I like that style, but there might be some merit to the flexibility of the rubber - it would keep the vibration/shock transfer down from the trailer to the bike. I'd like to have something that won't rattle much and won't woller out with wear like a lawn tractor pin style hitch but also something that is quick to release with a pin as opposed to a bolt/nut.

2. Wheels. I am thinking 26" as it would roll easier over bumps. However, 20" is pretty common. BMX style wheels that are beefy and built for jumping ramps would probably be stronger than most other types of wheels. I remember in my BMX days about 15 years ago one of the big upgrades was Alex triple wall rims. The triple wall meaning 3 levels of structure in the direction of the spokes (and tall side walls where the brake pads would go). They were heavier, but guys that switched to them had a lot less rim problems. As to hubs - I am sure there is something out there that has a beefy axle/bearing set up. I am not sure what is more important - a beefy hub/bearing/axle assembly or a beefy rim. Both are important, I suppose. I would imagine there are some strong options in 26", but I doubt that category of rim would be as strong as the severe duty of the triple wall 20" BMX rims. My goal would be a wheel set that I don't have to worry about loading or hitting bumps with. I don't intend to be hauling 500lbs, but if I'm between 100-200 over a lot of miles I'd rather steer clear of the department store type kids 20" bike wheels/axles/hubs.

Another note on wheels is the trailer the guy had that I hung out with had an outside rail on each side with the wheel axles supported on both sides. This makes a whole lot of sense, as opposed to the axle only being held from the one side closest to the trailer frame. The rails on his design used all-thread rod so as where adjustable to different axle widths. I am not sure that I would want to plan on different axle widths, but the outside rail to support the axle from both sides, from a loading perspective (and.... damage control - the rails would act like a bumper/rub rail to protect the wheels and axles from damage) is a great idea.

3. Material. I know aluminum is lighter than steel, but it scares me a bit. I'd prefer to weld the frame together. Steel is way easier - and also easier to repair on-the-go if need-be. With regards to aluminum - is there an aluminum that is easier to stick weld? That is the only way I can weld aluminum - no mig or tig here, and it would be easy to stash a few aluminum rods for a fix on-the-go at a farm or service shop somewhere that had a DC stick machine. Otherwise, I think steel would be the least hassle. As to what grade - not sure. All the steel I've worked with has been A36 over the years, standard structural steel. I have a light flux core machine also, but with the stick I have a lot more flexibility (rod types/sizes, variable polarity, amperage, etc, etc). I suppose I could O/A a frame together also... but it would be a lot cheaper running stick as I'd have to get bigger bottles + the gas and maybe fitting adapters and that would be $300-500, vs maybe a box or two of a certain rod (have a bunch including Crown Alloys Royal 300's - 3/16" - for aluminum).

4. Size. Dealing with trails and people I don't think it is wise to go very wide. My bike with all the bags on it was too wide for my liking as it was. I'm thinking maybe of staying under 30", maybe 22-24" for the cargo box plus the wheels/framing outside of it? As far as length goes - I am going to set all my gear out and sort it to see what fits in that 22-24" width and see how long that gets. Figure that is a starting point for volume. Something that bothered me on my trek was resupplying and tossing all the bags on top without being able to get that stuff down inside the bags I had, for the most part. If I have more than enough space inside the trailer for all my gear then I have room for those resupply runs and getting that stuff inside the trailer. Yeah, adding weight isn't always a good thing - but by having the ability to resupply with a good amount of stuff that will open up how far I can go between resupply runs and ease up on stuff to get me by a period of sitting for a few days - water, food, fuel.