What is your bike trailer story?  How have you moved and been moved by your use of a bike trailer?  Send in your photos and stories about your bike trailer or other bike accessory related photos and stories to share and be seen here.

The Ladder Pull in Bill’s Words:

I have been riding my trusty steed for about three years. I have enjoyed it. It had a sun shade on it for a while but the vibration kept braking the soldier joints on the copper pipe frame. I finally took it off and am trying to find another plan.
I had the need for a ladder across town. I needed a way to transport it. The doomed three wheeled baby stroller  became the rear wheels of my parade.
I got there and back. The nice ladies gutters got cleaned and I did not have any of my friends do the hauling for me.
I am sure the next time I will do it different but it got there and back safely. The other thing that you should know is the whole process was very heavy.

This dog looks right at home in the back of this custom painted BOB Ibex Trailer.  I’m sure the Wandertec SAX liner ads to the comfort of the ride.  It should be noted that BOB states explicitly that there trailer is for cargo only.  Maybe this was just a posed photo while parked.

Also of note is the bike rack mounted on the back of the BOB.  This is a good demonstration of how a Greenspeed Rack will do much better on the BOB as it is designed to fit over the 16″ wheel of the BOB Trailer.

Gunner going for a spin around the neighborhood...

It’s always great to see all of the clever ways that people rig up there bike trailers for utility and adventure.  This one is quite clever and really looks quite natural to the setup of the BOB Trailer.  Too big a fish might pull in the whole trailer.  If you are looking to hook a BOB Trailer, we’ve got them at 10% off through the end of January.

In Michael’s words:

I love my bob trailer, not only is it my main work transporter, it also doubles as my recreational vehicle for fishing and camping. I used PVC pipe and hose clamps to make the pole holders.

As a purveyor of BOB Trailers, we’ve often looked in disdain at Nashbar’s knockoff single-wheel trailer offering at about half the price.  We’ve also spoken and heard about quite a few Nashbar trailer customers that have not been happy with the performance.  There must be a few happy customers our there, but we’ve never heard from them.

Brian had the most novel approach to the issues he had with his trailer my modyfying and rebuilding into something unique.  We’re excited to see how Brian’s trailer continue to evolve.  By the way, we’re running low on interesting bike trailer photos here in the winter months.  If you have anything of note on a hard drive, please send them on in.

In Brian’s word’s:

This was a Nashbar trailer that the fork failed on.  My main use for this trailer will be for trail work/maintenance a few miles from my house and running errands so this will be a project in work for awhile.  The rear rack carries a rack bag most times and my plans are to add a dynamo tire driven light system with battery storage.The fork came from the trailer shop and if I add rear suspension I will probably use the Ibex shock.  Thanks for looking and when I get it finished and painted I will send another picture.

Marty of The Jersey Pedaler sent in this photo of his Carry Freedom Y-Frame Trailer.  If  those ties had a pillow strapped to the front, it could make a decent headrest.

Carried 3x8ft landscape ties at 25# each from garden center 4 miles home

As a life-long cyclist, I have found many times that I’ve wanted or needed to carry one bike with another.  The main reason I’ve needed to transport another bike is because I need to get the out of commission bike down to the bike shop.  But there are all sorts of other logistical reasons where bike hauling capabilities come in handy.  Shuttling kids bikes, picking someone up at the airport, working at a bike shop and picking up bikes up for repair and the list goes on.

Bike trailers are a great way to transport bikes.  We’ve messed around with a variety of techniques for mounting the bike to the trailer including, using a fork block and letting the rear wheel pull on the ground, mounting a roof rack tray to the bike trailer (as shown below) or simply loading the whole bike into the trailer if the trailer is big enough.

Tom sent in a great example of a trailer adapted to this purpose:

After finding myself shuttling my kids’ bikes to and from school because of varying schedules, I decided to use an old Schwinn trailer frame, a Burley hitch and a couple of roof rack components from my car to build this bicycle-carrying trailer.

Here is an interesting adaptation of our in-house built bike trailer, the Wandertec BONGO. We designed this trailer with modification and customization in mind. It is a great platform for quite a few different uses. And it always seems that there are more unique uses for it. Using it for transporting a wheelchair behind a mobility scooter is yet another unexpected direction.

Our customer Thom describes:

Several months back I picked up a trailer from you folks. I believe I was working with Robert? I came up with this idea how cool it would be if I could take my wheelchair with me when I was out on my mobility scooter. I asked a lot of questions and then bought one. The end results are steller! The only part I added was an 18″ piece of 1″ X 1″ channel. I Drilled two holes in it and I was good to go. It will hook to any Pride Mobility scooter. NO welding or drilling on the scooter. It’s all there, stock. In this case, SIZE MATTERS. if you hooked this up to a small scooter, it may burn it up. It tracks killer. Left turns are WAY better than right turns but that with a little thought is no problem.

Think of what people in retirement communities could do with this set up……. I see money to be made! Ice chest, Groceries, Dogs, Stuff……..

A customer from Japan sent us in this photo of his Xtracycle out for its first test ride, outfitted with the Flight Deck and Pannier Racks. We’ve heard and seen with increased sales that Xtracycle’s are becoming quite a hit in Japan in recent years.

In Masahiro’s words:

When doing a test ride to the big park around here just after a bicycle was made up, this picture is the one of which I took a picture. A so nice forest is still also left in Tokyo. I don’t match your national grand nature.

Batman, who apparently also moonlights as a keyboardist, sent in this photo of his bike trailer setup. I’m guessing that the somewhat blurry, dark photo was taken as Batman was jumping on his bike to chase after a criminal in between gigs. Or perhaps it was intentionally blurry to hide some of its alternative crime fighting functions.

Happy Halloween from the Bike Shop Hub!

The theme for this weeks posts seems to be followups on previously submitted bike trailer posts. Last week I posted quite a few images of Steve’s innovative jumbo trailer. He sent in a few more images showing the rig he set up to haul his wagon around with.

Appropriately enough, he’s got a new Surly Troll, the new all purpose utility bike with a bend towards heavy-duty touring and utility use. Stu here has been riding around on one. A few images of the Surly Troll with Stu’s custom “mystery” rack. Megan rode one with Cass in Costa Rica and Cass liked the look of it so much he got his hands on one and wrote a nice review.