Ideas for Bike Trailer?

PB Forum :: Road Cycling and Touring
Ideas for Bike Trailer?
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flag skiermike
Posted: May 8, 2017 at 14:25 Quote
Hi everyone,

Given the outrageous cost of the Bob-type trailers and my predilection for tinkering, I've been thinking about designing a bike trailer for mountain bike bikepacking. If you were going to buy or design a trailer, what improvements from the Bob style trailers would you want to get? Here's what I'm thinking:

1. Lighter weight - the Bob trailers are steel, seems like an obvious weight opportunity here.

2. Possibly larger tire size for lower rolling resistance (but only if low center of gravity can be maintained)

3. No drybag - wasted weight (and expense). What's the point when all my bikepacking is done in the summer and I own, you know, trashbags.

4. Some sort of modular connection to adapt to all the changing hub dimensions without having to start over completely.

Thoughts?
flag RunsWithScissors
Posted: May 10, 2017 at 15:46 Quote
I seriously doubt you're gonna beat a Bob trailer on value for the dollar. It's a pretty solid design and the price relative to what you get is good. Sure, there's room for improvement, but the cost of making something significantly better is gonna also be very significantly higher as well.

If price isn't a problem then yeah, I'd go with....


Carbon lug and tube construction or a Ti skeleton frame

Lots of bungie hook anchor points.

Use a carbon 700c wheel with a plus width tire and make the deck a little bit lower than the axle for better balance and ground clearance.

Build a canoe shaped bottom profile so sidehill and leaning clearance are enhanced.

Design a universal 12mm thru axle mount that will fit a variety of frames, both 142mm and 148mm.

Add a stand so you don't have to twist and wrench the bike with a heavily laden trailer to vertical from a horizontal position.

These are the kind of things I'd work on if I were going to design/build my own trailer and I guess if I had a pile of spare time and spare parts on hand I might do something like this, but I'd rather just buy a used Bob for about $150 on Craig's List and hit the trail.
flag JimNZ
Posted: May 11, 2017 at 3:26 Quote
Not going to save money but have a look at http://questbiketrailers.com/ for some ideas. I have one and it is great.
A carbon fibre shell and lid would save a bit of weight.
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