Wiggles_dad

I know there are a lot of DIY trailer designs out there, but I was wondering if anyone has bothered building a stylish trailer... lugged even?

unterhausen

I have considered building a bob-like trailer. There have been trailers in the Oregon Manifest competition, worth looking at

long john

I am in the process now of building a trailer no lugs but stylish.

Captain Blight

"Best city bike" from one of the Handmade shows a few years ago had a trailer involved, it was pretty sweet. Steel frame, waxed-canvas cover, red fenders. Very nice.

*EDIT: Link to photos

I think you'd have a heck of a time getting lugs to work with the angles you'd need, unless you made your own.

fietsbob

Jack Taylor cycles, in UK made a single wheel trailer a Long time ago.. a pre BoB, BoB.. ..

unterhausen

Trucker Racks has a set on Flickr that shows the construction of that trailer

mtbikerinpa

For dual purpose functionality I made one with a harbor-frieght hand truck and a hitch hook. It worked quite well and even allowed for a 16 ft ladder by attatching it to one end and the other on the rack.

ksisler

Bingo on that ...There are a few web sites dedicated to the products of the Taylor bro's include at least one registry by serial number and model (although probably more than half are unaccounted for). One can find a good number of pictures of their pre-Bob's on those sites... certainly enough detail for sketching a design. Google will find the sites.

On the other hand, most of the modern Bob type trailers I have seen for sale look almost identical to those by the Taylors... so one could compare buy vs build again and make a call. The newer ones seem a bit spendy to my view.

My original Taylor trailer was long ago stolen and I can share from my experience that finding a used Taylor unit for sale in any condition is very unlikely (if anyone has one, please PM me!!!).

ksisler

[Partial self QUOTE=ksisler;15042748]Bingo on that ...There are a few web .....the other hand, most of the modern Bob type trailers I have seen for sale look almost identical to those by the Taylors... so one could compare buy vs build again and make a call. The newer ones seem a bit spendy to my view. .[/QUOTE]

Forgot to mention that I had filed a url to www.amazon.com which has a good number of Bob's for sale (I checked them today). I noted that all are priced the same whether they have the dry sack or not and whether they are hard-tail or suspended, so it comes to about $320 one way or the other.

unterhausen

those Taylor trailers are pretty nice, although I like the extra bar of the bob.

I have a frame that is intended for commuter duty that has an extra set of rack mounts braze ons down by the rear dropouts for a trailer. I think I stole that idea from Eric of Winter Cycles.

ksisler

Could we beg a bit and get you to post a photo or two of the rear triangle with the braze-on's showing... I have been wondering/wandering on that very topic myself as I plan my next frame build as I don't care for putting things underneath my rear QR... I am thinking that I might design up a new rear vertical drop out with the RD hanger, disk brake mount, trailer mounts and double eyelets for the normal stuff. Am betting that the structural requirements will drive the design. Suspect the real bad guys in the scenario are the trailer makers which do not make a mount option that takes off from the seat post. With most of those seat post mounts you could lay your bike down without flipping the trailer on its side and it also removed the complication from the rear axle area...

ksisler

BTW: I forgot to circle back to add that when I was looking for Bob's and finding only $300 and up availablity, I did find that several tradition 2 wheel and one 1 wheel products are available for $99 and free shipping. While more boxy that the Bob's and not quite as well finished, they could haul more and the price looked great. To find them either google or scroll all the way to the bottom of one of the Bob's 4sale pages on Amazon.

unterhausen

I went and looked at my flickr account, and the only picture of the rear triangle was posted before I put on the extra rack braze-ons. I have been thinking about a utility bike, but this thread makes me think a trailer would be a better choice. Utility bikes are a pain if you only have a small two car garage featuring two cars and a framebuilding shop.

tuz

There is a nice photoset by Duncan cycles here. The trailer is pretty heavy duty but I like the rod-end bearing hitch. For a light-weight and versatile trailer I like the one by Maya cycle.

unterhausen

Alistair has one of my favorite flickr sites. One of the reasons I want a trailer is to go pick up welding gasses, wonder if the LWS will give me any nonsense about putting them on a trailer?