WeeHoo freewheel failure
 

I bought a used WeeHoo Venture model trailer cycle a few years ago that my 6yo loves to ride, in the last 2 weeks it began making a loud rubbing sound on every wheel revolution, and there was a good deal of friction making it harder to pedal, but nothing was touching the tire, and the crank would cycle backward. I took it to my local bike shop yesterday, they undid the wheel nuts and when they took the axle out of the sliding dropouts the freewheel fell off and dropped onto the floor with a clank, upon inspection the threading on the hub was stripped. So the shop has ordered a new and serviceable freewheel they are fitting to a new 20" wheel - they mentioned the broken freewheel was not designed with puller splines to be removable, just a one-time thread-on assembly they suspect was cross-threaded when originally assembled. The shop wasn't sure how they would have got the freewheel off if it hadn't stripped the threads and just fallen off. I'm going to ask the shop to lube the crank bearings while they have it in, hopefully with the new wheel this should make it easier to pedal.

Am posting this for other WeeHoo owners benefit because I couldn't get much information from WeeHoo customer service or Googling on the web, and from seeing other reports online this appears to be a point of failure on well-used WeeHoo trailer cycles.

There is a perfectly good method to remove those freewheels, though they usually can't be re-used, well described at SheldonBrown.com - similar ones are used on entry level BMX race bikes. I've never heard of what you've described happening, and I HAVE destroyed one of those freewheels.

The shop also told me they hadn't seen a freewheel strip the hub threading and that they could repair the WeeHoo using BMX parts, I was relieved because those are simple and in stock, hoping the repair can be made this month.

Honestly that should be a couple minutes to repair - any shop that has BMX stuff should have those in stock, and it's not something that requires any special tools. Should be new wheel (or new hub), new freewheel and a 15mm wrench. Any delay should just be if they don't have parts on hand.

I don't like to be a hater, but in my opinion the Weehoo trailers are "BSO's". I was considering buying one, and emailed their customer service with some basic questions about the gearing to see what speeds my kid would actually be able to "push" at. I asked for chainring size, cog size, wheel size, and dropout type.

They told me they had no idea what the chainring and cog sizes were, but that they could "ask the factory". They also said that the dropouts were vertical. I eventually ended up borrowing one from a friend, and found out that the dropouts were horizontal (as you'd assume for a singlespeed). I also found out that it was super heavy, it's basically made out of the same tubes you'd use for a trampoline frame. The Weehoo weighed significantly more than my bike did.

Sad, really, as I'd assume there would be a market for "recumbent" style bike trailers that don't weigh twice what your bike does. I ended up buying a FollowMe tandem. That's also heavy, but at least has some good options for growing children.

I went through a couple different trailer bikes, eventually settled on the Burley Kazoo (Same as Piccolo, only Kazoo=single speed, Piccolo=7speed). It's bigger, thinner wall tubing, the bearings on the pivot are FAR superior to anything else, and the trailer tracks closer to the bike wheels than the seat-post ones. I've not seen anything else that's as good.

Thank you so much for posting this! I thought I was going crazy... towing the Weehoo empty felt such like a drag! I also bought it second hand and now this. Unfortunately I brought it with me overseas and now it's going to cost an arm to fix. But thanks to your thread I know it can be done. Cheers

It's entirely possible it's just the freewheel, not hub failure. In any case, there's no reason it should cost a lot to fix - the wheel is all standard parts. A same-size wheel, new 16T single speed freewheel (I recommend the Shimano ones as a quality but relatively low-cost replacement)

In the most likely case that it's just the freewheel, SheldonBrown.com and also at ParkTools.com there are good tutorials on freewheel removal, both normal if it has splines or destructive if not. Quality new freewheels are $20-30.