badmother

Sounds like my place. I just realised I have two trailer sized Samsonites so one for me and one for son

I let a Carlton carry on size go at a flea market yesterday and now I regret. Was thinking I could install the Klick Fix rear rack fittings to it and carry it on the rack but could not make up my mind and suddenly it was gone...

You could maybe add one more bolt in front later.


Not as difficult as it sounds, just make sure the sewing machine is up for it. At present I am using my recent phurcase, a 1475CD Pfaff with a built in walking foot but the old black Singer machines are exellent for sewing heavy stuff, old Pfaff and others too. I keep one machine set up for heavy thread so I do not need to adjust for heavy thread all the time. At the moment I am sewing with regular Guterman thread and a elastic straight stitch (two stitces forward, then one backwards then two forwards so three stitces on top of eachother).

I just finished a lining with pockets and rolltop for my sons Brompton basket, I,ll post pictures soon.

Then I`ll finish the lining with rolltop for my Klickfix basket.

I left half finished sewing a B basket for myself. I `ve got a blue and red one that came with the bikes but I wanted a black one..

Some time back I cut down a Brompton C frame to use for a bag I had. Now the bag is ditched so I decided to make a smaller (sized down) basket with rolltop for this smaller frame for my B so I can ride with a smaller bag in front when needed. I have decided to finish it now.

Started making two T-bags some time back. Have decided to finish them too since they are of no use where they are now. I ended up buying one for myself but son need one and since there is a B block on my Dahon Curve it would be great to be able to bring a friend on the Curve when we ride.

Want to make a light cower for my Curve to take on trains.

After that I`ll start on a bag for the Andersen- I think..

I am going back to a flea marked today and bring the Andersen wheels. There was a super light backpack with a light alu frame that I was thinking could be used on the Andersen wheels. would make it easy to carry on my back when the needed the wheels as a cart.

Wow, you can not buy as much as a packet of biscuits on your return Good excuse to save the money for gifts..

I remember our first flight with bikes- full sized ones at that time. Weighing everything and swapping out steel bars for alu and removing even the rack on my sons bike. Trip went to Lego Land so of course we bought stuff. When going back it was super hot and we still vent into the toilet at the airport to dress in the heavyest chlotes and shoes, more than one layer to solve the weight problem

Thank you for posting great pictures of the trailer frame. First time I have seen proper pictures of one of them I think. We made one or two some years ago, I`ll pull it out of the shed and compare.

Have a nice trip!

2_i 

An obvious benefit of having copies of the same suitcase is that, when they break, you can interchange parts. I had mixed success with ordering parts from Carlton. I could get some in the past, but not other, and recently, in my memory, they provided no source of parts in the US.

That is true, but the strap works and there is some benefit in not drilling

Wow, I'll have to consult with my wife. I used to sew clothes for my dolls/figurines when I was a kid and this was a Singer indeed. The clothes were crude and I could figure out the Singer. However, on a team you tend to scale down the activities where you can contribute little compared to others. My wife wore at some point mostly clothes that she had sewn herself or at least had reinvented - where was I in comparison with my Mickey Mouse capabilities! I think we have a Rowenta now and its complexity has been over my head. According to my wife the machine has not been good for heavy cloth - i.e. whenever I bring something overly thick, she turns me away. However, the idea of having 2 machines for different purposes is something maybe we should pursue. I do have Guterman threads, I think, even here in my travel.

The original plan was for an Armagnac

Thanks! The trip was actually pretty uneventful. The sagging Vincita bag, rubbing against the ground, was a drag. I suppose that if one figured out a better bottom for that bag, one might finally declare the process of Creation to be complete .

My various connections were delayed and I arrived late in the evening to a misty rain. I decided to put together my bike-trailer setup in the waiting room of the railway station and surprisingly nobody cared. Most people were more concerned about their train departures or phone calls they were making than me spreading out. I struggled with the suitcase holes that I plugged with standard 1/4" nylon plugs. With the pocket knife I was starting to do more damage than previously with the drill. Some plugs should be there as the suitcase will be soaked with rain on one occasion or another, but these need to easily removable from outside. I am ordering rubber bumper plugs that should be more deformable and with bigger heads.

I suspected ahead of time that things could slip and decided to develop an option of putting a battery light on the suitcase. Whatever we came up with my wife did not work that well in the field and I was losing sleep a bit after the long mostly sleepless trip bugged by the lack of a good solution - light that could not be obscured by whatever is strapped to the top of the suitcase, directed firmly backwards and not affected by putting the suitcase onto the caster wheels. By morning the solution was there, astoundingly trivial, of putting the light on the lip of the suitcase and securing it by closing the lid, see the photos. Hoops for attaching tie-downs could be presumably arranged in a similar way, though presumably the lips have a finite strength.

Overall riding with the trailer went very smoothly. Basically I hardly noticed it. Uphill it was harder, sure, but sort of as if one were riding up a steeper hill. The width issues, reported by others, were not affecting me, possibly because I tend to carry a lot of junk on my everyday bike that can stick out.

2_i 

If I get to catch a breath after a trip, I go over details of what went well and what bad and how to improve things. The travel with Brompton and BF trailer setup provided of course plenty of material to ponder on.

Overall the trip was a significant success. Principally the BF trailer kit can be used with any bike and any suitcase, subject to adaptations. In my case, the nuts holding the suitcase partly unscrewed due to material of the suitcase being corrugated for strength. As a remedy I glued circles out of a tube to washers mounted on the trailer bolts, pushing against the suitcase material.

On the hitch end, having used the Radical Design hitch from bike side, there was time to get an RD hitch from the trailer side, rather than just an adapter there. This required finding a suitable hose for the BF end. I was looking for a sturdy hose with a double rather than just single steel braid. A double braid usually inflated the outer diameter of the hose, making it difficult to push it into the BF tongue tube. To make things difficult, often only coarse size information is available from manufacturers about the dimensions. Among various hose pieces I purchased there was one that had nylon braid instead of promised steel and others were too thick. Finally I hit bulls eye, Gates 6M3K Mega3000 3/8" hose, strong, elastic and of the right size. You can get hydraulic lines utilizing that hose and just cut out the length out of it that you need for the trailer. In the RD case, you combine the hose with a piece of an M10 bolt.

The photo below shows the products.

fietsbob

One benefit I found with the bend of the Carry Freedom City trailer and the Chariot ball an socket hitch

is that the Brompton rear fold is unimpeded ... tow handle comes in perpendicular to the bike frame.

the ball elastomer is free to rotate within the hitch socket..

but that would require knowing someone that can fabricate a piece of aluminum tubing , with a different bend..

on the Carry Freedom trailer its bend matches the trailer frame, which is rectangular , the wheels can fold into the rectangle ,

once its sling bag is removed, they put wheels on the back edge, that let the trailer fit between back-to-back seats..



....

2_i 

One could think about an adapter to BF tongue turning at a sharp angle to achieve this kind of goal. At some point I bent alu tubes with ~50% success rate. You filled the tube with sand and locked it with wooden plugs. Then you heated the tube with sand inside around the prospective bent. At times the bending went fine, at times the tube caved in, at times you ended up with a wrong angle.

In my case the need for a hitch tolerant to 180deg flip is alleviated by a kickstand and even two of them. I use one for the most common situations and second to increase stability when the front bag is heavily loaded.