Cycling UK Forum

I have a couple of trailers and often do a full trolleys worth of shopping with one. I often use a completely inappropriate bike but still manage ok (high geared fixed). I must admit it's not unknown for me to get off and push on some hills with heavier loads (in fact on occasion I have struggled to push it!).

The easiest/cheapest option is to pick up a used kiddy trailer and convert it but making your own is very easy, I made a linkage using an eye bolt.
The trailer in the picture is one which I made to be able to carry heavy stuff.

This has been covered by BlackBeltBarrister recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V5TnSyj_po&t=4s

I was over 20 stone a while back and found that the main problem tends to be wheels and the spokes breaking. They tend to be ok for a while but eventually a spoke will break and there is not much point replacing it as the others will soon follow. The solution to this was (as suggested above) to get the hand built wheels and ask the builder to make them as strong as possible.
The strength of the cranks may also be worth considering as I have had them break on me and this is not something I would recommend.
BTW - There will probably be a maximum weight specified for the bike/frame so you may find they refuse to honour any warranty if you have problems?

I always carry a can of puncture repair spray but I find the results mixed. Some times it works great other times it fails completely.
Same with puncture resistant tyres, they are a great improvement but far from perfect.
Best advice I would offer is carry a spare inner tube (ideally 2) and some decent tyre levers.

I can't claim the idea was mine, if you Google "PassPixi" you should find some examples

It would be interesting to get someone to either attach the sticker on not and so the cyclist doesn't know if it is in display or not and see what their experience is.

I have had front and rear cameras on my bike for many years now and tried to make them as discreet as I could, but recently I decided to try an experiment of making the camera more visible by creating a large vinyl sticker based on the speed camera warning signs and sticking it in front of my camera.
I didn't know what the result would be, suspecting it likely to cause more problems with passing motorists taking offence and wanting to demonstrate their anger but actually the result is proving to be very positive so far.
In fact many passing cars are holding back and giving me plenty of space to the extent it starts to feel weird!

I would recommend when fitting cameras to give this a try.

Hi,

I was around 125kg and also I tend to carry a lot of cargo (two panniers full of shopping etc.), I not surprisingly had a lot of trouble with spokes breaking in my wheels. I would find a wheel would be fine for a while but as soon as one spoke broke then no point replacing it as the others would soon follow...

I found the components used are not really that important as much as the quality of the wheel build.
i.e. buy a new wheel which has been hand built or have your existing wheel completely rebuilt would be my suggestion, explaining that you want them to be as strong as possible.

I bought a couple of hand built wheels for around £200 and never had any problem after that

If you put some heat on the crank this should expand it and make it easier to remove

I have rear view mirrors on all my bikes and would not like to ride a bike without one (I like to keep an eye on what the car behind is doing)
BUT, there is always a blind spot so it is very important to ensure you never start relying on them fully and always look round as well before pulling out etc.. Obvious advice I know but it is very easy to start doing this and it will end in tears if you don't watch out for it happening.

It is important the mirror is convex rather than flat otherwise the view in it will be very restricted. I found that cycle mirrors seem to be stupid expensive for what they are and in the end I settled on using motorbike ones similar to the link below.
They require a bolt/screw fitting making/modifying in to the handlebar as motorbike bars are a different size but the quality is ok and the price excellent, something as simple as a tight fitting piece of wood with a screw in to it will do the job.
They are pretty solidly mounted and so I expected to snap it off within weeks but so far they have had no problem with them.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7-8-PAIR-UNIVERSAL-MOTORBIKE-BAR-END-REARVIEW-MIRRORS-MOTORCYCLE-BIKE-BLACK-UK/153170478561

Jamesh wrote:How far did you pedal that fridge freezer / sofa?!!
Was the trailer braked?
Cheers James

The fridge was just a few streets but the sofa was around 3miles. Journeys with a heavy load tend to be pretty slow but it is surprising how well it works.
The trailer doesn't have brakes, As you are not going to attempt anything but very slow with a big load like that it has never been an issue, I guess if you planned to go down a steep hill with it this situation might be different?

Interestingly there seems to be no legal restrictions to what you are allowed to tow with a cycle in the U.K. (as far as I can find out)

Looks like some interesting info here: https://www.atob.org.uk/bicycle-trailers/

pedalsabout wrote:Alan, your home made heavy duty trailer looks great. I'm afraid I'm not good enough at that sort of thing to build my own, although I'm sure you're right that it would be a much better option.

All you need is a couple of suitable wheels and the rest can be made of whatever you have available
e.g. A basic wooden frame with plastic container attached
or how about: https://www.instructables.com/PVC-Bike-trailer_1/

The only "difficult" part is how it attaches to the cycle as it needs to be free to twist, this can be as simple as a stiff spring on a light trailer.
Once you have made one the only problem will be limiting how many more you make

Having said that, the one on Amazon seems a good price, last time I looked the cheapest cycle trailer available was twice that.

This Youtube channel may be of interest as he has done a lot about Vitamin D and Covid,
in fact he has been trying to get people to take it seriously since the start of the pandemic

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg

I would consider making your own, they are easy to make and certainly a lot cheaper and you can then make one (or more) to your exact requirements.

see: http://www.alanesq.eu5.net/trailer.htm
BTW - The top trailer was very experimental and not sure I would recommend it but the bottom one I built to be able to carry pretty much anything I can get on to it and as you can see it has proved to be very handy at least for short distances
I built the hitch using an eye bolt, it just needs to be free to move in all three directions.

You should be able to do this with a smartphone no problem, there are many apps which will record the gps data and then you can export this as a standard file and feed this in to many online maps etc. which will give you all the stats you could wish for.

I use an Android phone and recommend https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.denn ... pentracks/
this will give you distance travelled information etc. and you can export the data it produces and use it in: https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/
or even Strava if you wish