Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
If you are riding on hilly gravel, keep in mind that a trailer that transfers some of the total load to the trailer wheel(s) has less weight on the tire that is providing propulsion effort. Less weight on that tire and it can lose traction easier on gravel.
I was on a group tour, one of the people in the group had the trike with trailer in the photo below, he was quite concerned about some gravel uphills where he was not sure if he would have good enough traction because only about 35 to 40 percent (my guess) of his total weight was on the driving wheel.
He made it up the hills, but his concern was partly based on prior experience when he did not have enough weight on the driving wheel to prevent traction loss.
Well said. The actual term is tractive effort to GVW ratio (TE/GVW). And it can be traction-limited, or power-limited, so two different calculations are required to predict vehicle performance.
This is what gives me warm fuzzy thoughts about a bike with a front hub electric drive, as, combined with pedal power, it gives you AWD up steeps with loose traction. There is an electric bike out there with both front and rear hub motors and wide tires, and it's unstoppable, even on deep beach sand and up hills.