As You Like It

Please check this one out! I towed home my singlespeed on a BOB trailer today...I'd been working on it at my boyfriend's house the night before.


I am continually amazed at the capacities of this trailer. Some while back, I took all of my recycling down to the recycling center, some 4-ish miles from my house, no problems. I got a compliment from one of the dudes at the recycling center. "That's a pretty neat contraption you've got behind your bike there," he said.

n4zou

About once a week I pick up trash along a 5-mile section of the Chief Ladiga trail and use an old Tri Hitch Hiker with a plastic trash can strapped to one side. Occasionally I run up on abandoned bikes so I just use plastic zip ties to strap the front wheel on the other side of my Tri Hitch Hiker that I striped and use as a one-wheel trailer. If the rear tire is flat I just put the front tire/tube on the rear wheel but if both are flat I'll just remove the tire from the rim and just let the rim roll on the pavement.

trackandtrials

Hey all -

I'm sure this has been covered, but I can't seem to find any ideas/photos of people towing bikes without using an actual trailer. I'm thinking about making a bracket to mount a bedhead-type fork mount to my rear rack (including a hinge to allow the rear bike to pivot up & down). I just thought I'd look for existing products or advice from all you commuters.

My only excuse for not biking to work these days is when I bring a road or mountain bike for rides before/afterwards...I'd like to take that excuse away for good

Thanks!

ItsJustMe

Look up "Trail Gator" on Nashbar or wherever. It's designed to tow a kid's bike with the kid on it and riding. I'm sure it would handle an adult bike with no load, though the angle might need to be adjusted to keep the front wheel off the ground.

wsexson

This was discussed on a LHT-CC list recently. I think that the best answer was to U-bolt an old front hub to your rear rack. Easy and cheap.

nicomachus

this is what I do



but I've also seen what you describe. just bolt a fork-mount on a rear rack and you can tow the other bike behind.

n4zou

Front hub with QR clamped firmly to the rear rack. Broken flanges on the hub are fine. Just remove the front wheel from the bike you plan to tow and put the towed bike fork on the hub axel and tighten the QR. Bungee the front wheel to the towed bike frame. The hub will allow up and down movement and the towed bikes fork will allow rotation when making turns.

trackandtrials

Incredible...that's exactly the type of DIY solution I was looking for. Thanks everybody!

Odyssey

Although at the moment I have the option to borrow a car, I don't like driving at all and only use it if there's really no alternative - which as yet is practically never. As such, I'm looking to find other ways to do things, with my bike instead. My latest challenge is picking people up from places, such as my girlfriend from the station ~4 miles away. I've settled on trying to tow a second bike with my own.

My first attempts involving trying to strap the front wheel of the second bike to one of my panniers, which looked like it might work for a while - until the trailing bike kept falling over, and it became clear that the fork itself needed supporting rather than the wheel. Then I noticed that the forks were roughly the same spacing as my rack, and I came up with this:


https://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0780.jpg


https://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x181/odyssey_mtaylor/IMG_0779.jpg

That's small bits of inner tube wrapped around the rack to protect it, and one massive bungee stopping the fork dropouts coming off the rack - the little blue bungee is just there because it was lying around, it's not nearly strong enough to hold the bike down. The bungees run up the forks to the brake bosses, wrap around between them a couple of times and head back down again.

I took it for a mile or so ride around the village and it seems to work okay - the only issue is if I wobble the bike at low speed, the wobble needs to be checked quickly else it'll build up uncomfortably - easily avoided. The only improvement I can think of is to move the whole lot back to the next rung on the rack, to try and avoid issues with the pedals on the trailing bike hitting my wheel (or I could just stop the cranks turning somehow).

Has anyone got any comments, thoughts, suggestions as to how I might go about this better? I appreciate a proper clamp for the front fork as used on roof racks etc. would be better, but I'm trying to do this without buying or permanently modifying anything.

Cheers!

Roody

If it works, it works. It reminds me of a fifth wheel for a truck trailer. The fork of the trailing bike is free to pivot on turns, etc.

Another strip of inner tube would probably be good for lashing the crank to the frame.

cranky

I would suggest a fork mount clamp. Hopefully you could fasten it to your rear rack directly somehow, or maybe to a 2x4 that could mount to the rack. Perhaps it would be easier, safer, and tighter than bungees.

vulpes

Yeah, but Odyssey said, "I'm trying to do this without buying or permanently modifying anything". I think his current setup looks pretty adequate.

cranky

Whoops, I missed that. Sorry.

vulpes

No worries

divergence

Just bungee one crank of the trailing bike to its down tube. The cranks will hold still just as if someone were coasting on the bike with their feet on the pedals.

tsl

No, that doesn't work because it clamps too tightly. It doesn't allow up-and-down pivoting as you go over bumps and whatnot.

I actually use the same method as the OP and it works just fine. It seems to work better, BTW, on the middle crossbar instead of the rear. Not sure why. Edit: I now see the OP has two crossbars in the middle. Moving one to the rear might be okay.

cranky

Ah, good point, it would need to swivel. Perhaps using an old wheel hub as a mount instead might work(tie wrap?). I guess I'm fixated on a firm attachment. I dislike bungees, they can be dangerous. My friend has a lens implant in his eye because an ill-fitted bungee removed the original one for him. Careful!

vulpes

I like the old hub idea. But how to attach it to the rack...bungees, or maybe tie wraps. Seriously, though, I have found bailing wire very useful for attaching things firmly to my rack. Then they can be removed with a couple snips with a pair of dikes.

cranky

I like the wire idea! Especially since you'd have so many spoke holes to use. Perhaps wiring it to something else as an adapter, and attaching that to the rack. Like, wiring it to a 2x4 that you could then bungee(heh) or bolt to the rack?

jeff-o

Cool idea! I'll have to remember that in case I ever have to attempt something similar.

Odyssey

Thanks for the input guys - the old hub idea sounds promising, and if I ever ended up doing something like this on a regular basis then I'd give it serious consideration. Bungees worry me a little too, I'll make sure I don't have my head too near the large one when I'm hooking it on.

tsl, nice to see someone else has already tested it! Perhaps with the forks on the back it adversely affects handling by acting as a pivot, whereas on the middle crossbar it's above the rear hub so wouldn't have a turning effect. Or maybe the extended wheelbase from having the trailing wheel further back would change the way it tracks around corners... I'll have to think about that one! For now I think I'll leave it where it is and use a velcro ankle-band to hold the crank in place (so long as I don't try to push the bike backwards, although that'd be an interesting test of the shear strength of velcro).

JeanCoutu

I was looking for a way to carry bikes...









Rode this 7 kms from my bro's place & not one problem.
Except the yellow bike is way too small for me.

Odyssey

Nice, seems my idea isn't as original as I thought! Even if they do occasionally try and maim you, bungees are wonderful things...

For the record, the execution of my plan worked perfectly, and once the bikes were separated resulted in a great day's cycling in the countryside with my gf - another convert to bikes! The setup was a little wobbly during pothole-avoidance, but surprisingly stable at speeds of ~20 mph or so - far faster than I'd be willing to bomb along on the small-framed second bike on its own (not to mention I look like a clown trying to ride it, yet it's still somehow too large for my gf...)

JeanCoutu

Heh, no actually you inspired me to try this, tried it around the block and and it worked flawlessly. So I went to fetch that red bike at my bro's place. Still got a semi-vintage Mikado road bike to go fetch (That one's got 27" wheels, 12 speeds and gearing clearly turned for racing, bet I can snag some parts for other bikes)

Well, at some point I wanted to get to the left turn only lane off an 6 lane road and there was a lump of cars approaching from the previous light, so I dialed it up to 400w and waited... After an eventual acceleration, before I know it this thing was going a whole lot faster then I expected, and then it hapenned: it started getting a death wobble. Quickly got a hold of it again, but man that could have been interesting.

Odyssey

Ah, I got confused by the fact your camera tagged the images as 2003 or somesuch

That Mikado sounds like a sweet ride, definitely haul it in! Death wobble seems like such an appropriate term, it feels just like that. I just had to make sure I kept up my cadence on hills and kept a smooth pedalling motion, else things got a little awry. Nothing uncontrollable, but very disconcerting nonetheless!