rnorris

I will be retiring soon and am looking forward to starting serious bike touring. During a recent road trip (by car, unfortunately) through the southwestern U.S., I couldn't help but notice the rumble strips that now plague the shoulders of most main highways. In some places they take up the entire shoulder. I had almost settled on getting a 2 wheel trailer, but am now seriously reconsidering that as it would be hard to keep one wheel out of the damn rumble strip. How are you folks that are touring with 2 wheel trailers or trikes handling this? You can't take the lane for long on many of these roads due to high speed traffic. Thanks for your comments.

Dan The Man

Yes rumble strips suck. The nicer highways at east put breaks every 20 feet or so making it easy to cross out of the shoulder if you need to avoid something.

My happiest cycling memory is hitting a stretch of brand new smooth tarmac in the late afternoon somewhere beautiful out in Arizona with a 2 or 3% downgrade and a little bit of tail wind. Everything just felt so smooth and effortless.

RepWI

BOB Trailers have one wheel. That will help a bit.

antokelly

search out the back roads for your tour (country roads) make for better touring less traffic and no rumble strips .why are you going with a trailer, im just curious on this.

rodar y rodar

For you guys with two wheel trailer experience, do you even notice bumps or a rumble strip that one trailer wheel rides on if the bike itself is on smooth pavement? I`m kind of thinking it wouldn`t much matter- could be wrong, though.

rnorris

I haven't pulled a trailer yet, but have ridden some of these roads with rumble strips. It's only briefly annoying to cross them, but it sure wouldn't be fun to have one wheel of a trailer or trike thrumming constantly in one of them for the continuous dozens of miles these things now run on many highways. In addition, they trap glass shards and other junk.

Why a trailer? I'm just curious at this point- I've used panniers and want to see how I like a trailer, as many people like them. But it looks like a Bob or other single wheel trailer may work best on a lot of these highways.

antokelly

rnorris we dont have to many of those rumble strips over here in ireland,mind you the road surface aint that great either on a lot of the roads,but having said that there not to bad either.but that not much good information for you,i think for a smooth ride you need smooth roads ,so try and check out roads that have no rumble strips ,a lot of folk on this forum and other forums love the bob trailer.hope you enjoy your retirement and get loads of quality smooth miles in. cheers.

nancy sv

Oh gads yes!! It's awful. Awful, I tell 'ya!! I started our last trip with a two-wheeled trailer that I really liked. Unfortunately, whenever we had those gawdawful rumble strips I had to ride out in the middle of the road - which wasn't particularly safe. In the end, we decided to ditch the trailer and put all that stuff on my rear rack instead.

On this trip I'm pulling a single-wheel trailer(started out with an ExtraWheel, now have a BOB) and it's much better. I still prefer the two-wheeled one for ease of use and all that, but having to ride out in the middle of hte road sucks!