Originally Posted by
Sianelle
That's a really nice bike trailer Cycleric, - like to tell us more about it?
While the trailer and bike-carrying hitch are stock BAW items, I had to improvise a little on the hitch that attaches to only one chainstay on the recumbent. I had actually custom-ordered a hitch from BAW for my OTHER bent, which is a KMX trike with rectangular stays. It was basically the universal ball hitch
thingy welded to a plate, with another plate to bolt to and spacers. I broke the ball joint from the plate by crossing a ditch in my front yard, so eventually I devised a way to use it differently. Now it is basically hose-clamped to a single ovular chainstay with a piece of wood in between that is shaped like the stay on the inside and like the broken weld on the outside. Two hose clamps hold around the stay, block, and hitch, while a third holds onto just the block and stay. I noticed a little bit of slippage after pulling the trailer with two of my friends on it (at least 300lbs), but it did hold. I added some rubber strips and am pretty confident it will pull whatever load I try to carry now.
On a side note, it's important to make sure the universal ball joint stays threaded tightly into its body/shaft/tube thingy. There was an instance when I was pulling home some dog food and a light load of groceries in a tub (nothing breakable, thankfully). I was almost home, coasting down the last hill, when I hear the unmistakable sound of a runaway trailer grinding its arm on the pavement. I consider my options for a moment as the trailer overtakes me on the left. Not knowing how to stop it from my position, I just let it glide away for what seemed like ten or twenty seconds, until it went off the side of the road and overturned in a deep ditch. It took a few minutes to fish it outta there, but no harm came of it...if anything, my trailer lost a little weight.