Show me your bike trailers!

I have sort of a bike trailer fetish. Trailers can be used to haul your kids, your pets, your cargo or even some tunes. It doesn't matter what you do with it- I want to see your trailer(s)!

Here are a few of mine: (Note: I currently live in a 900 sqft apartment with no garage so I don't own all of these anymore)

My first trailer was built for an event called the "Tour de Lights" hosted by the City of Knoxville (where I lived at the time). They were offering prizes for best decorated bicycle so I opted to go all out and built a custom trailer complete with glitter finished sleigh, a santa, and I eve used my sewing skills to make a bag of presents for all the good cyclists out there. Here is a [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QlGdIAjwsk"]link to a video[/ame] of some of the lighting on the sleigh. I won first place.




And I did get some smooches with this helmet...


The following year I built another trailer for the TdL but I went the other way. There are a lot more naughty cyclists out there than nice ones. This trailer was also custom made by me from welded steel frame. A body made of recycled oak (an old pallet) and the lid is made of composite fiberglass with real coal glued to the top. It was stupid heavy to pull but it was a real crowd pleaser. I even brought some little baggies of coal and passed them out to some of the local bike shop staffs who attended the ride.





My next project was a stereo trailer to use on casual group rides like city sponsored neighborhood rides and critical mass. Basically I built a car stereo outside of a car. The trailer is made of composite reinforced wood with a composite body. This thing weighed a ton because the car battery is quite literally a huge hunk of lead. It was awesome and got many smiles wherever we pulled it.







And finally- the only trailer that I still use in my tiny apartment- My WIKE cargo trailer. I didn't build this one.



Now lets see yours!

 

I just found a pic of my towing the TdL 2008 trailer...

 

It is/was a lot of fun but since I don't own any patents to the technology that goes into it I'd have a hard time keeping the idea from being ripped off. At best I would have a very limited market of people who'd buy one at the price I'd have to charge to make them too.

If you (or anyone else) wanted to build one I'd gladly offer my knowledge to help you do that. Outside of the trailer platform/wheels/tow bar the entire thing can pretty much be made with parts/materials you can buy at WalMart. I believe I had about $250 into building it (not counting the car battery which was on loan from a friends car). If you skipped the fancy composite skin and made a simpler wooden frame it could save quite a bit of time/money.

 

I feel that you'll be very disappointed in this type of attachment as it will have a LOT of front/back up/down play as you accelerate and slow down.

If you weld, something like this made of a caster wheel bracket and some airline quick connect fittings. Much more stable design.

 

A couple more pics.

 

Yes. You have to have a pipe with a bend in it otherwise you'd only be able to turn left or the towing arm would hit the back wheel. I just noticed that you can't see it in any of the pictures of the "coal" trailer [which is the trailer that used this hitch] but the trailer arm looks like the arm for the stereo or the WIKE trailer.

 

Your trailer also doesn't attach using crudely welded scrap steel and air hose fittings either, you don't have to get all braggy about it.

Seriously though, I wasn't saying _all_ trailers have that bend, only all trailers that use the hitch I posted. Well, technically all trailers that use a tow arm connected to the non-drive side axle use this bend, not just mine.