keg61

I like what you've got going here, I'm planning a trailer build to transport my tricycle based on the Ironton 40"x48" trailer kit from Northern Tool. I think it will be just about perfect for less than half what a full size trailer costs at Tractor Supply (sorry i didn't include a link , i suck at that stuff)

badmother

Bending aluminium is something I would not do. I have bent steel but you need to read about it so the tube does not collapse. Plug one end, fill it with sand, plug other end and bend arould a pre made piece of wood that is securely fixed to something solid. Try Instructables - DIY How To Make Instructions

MrYummieandMe

LOL! Yeah, you're right. I meant steel, and miswrote. That said, I wound up utilizing the larger changeable dropout mounting bolt to secure a slightly ground-to-shape Burley Steel Hitch. The combo of the Salsa and the Burley is great: I call it my pickup. It took some thinking, but I thunk a bit, and now I have the simpler, cheaper solution working out great!salsaburley.jpgIMG_2352.jpg

Leisesturm

I don't know what Travoy's cost, but a Bob Yak with trailer bag runs just over $300. There wern't knock-off's when I bought the Yak, but I'm glad I didn't wait for one. None of the cheap knock-off Bob Yak's come close to matching its weight or weight capacity.

The Travoy was around when I was shopping for a trailer. I decided, without even trying one, that that much flat surface perpendicular to the line of travel would generate serious amounts of wind drag. I know one person with a Travoy, and when I encounter them I drop them like they are standing still. I often see them on the bus with it on a 7 mile run that I usually much rather ride than take the bus.

The idea put out by the op of using a luggage trailer is pretty ingenious. In addition to being cheaper, the more open construction using tubes vs a large, flat, plate gives an aero advantage. Personally, if the goal was to have a way to tote the folded bike, I would dispense with the expense and weight of a suitcase and just bungee the folded bike to the luggage carrier.

If I were going to attempt to reverse engineer a Travoy I would avoid using any OEM Burley components unless used. better to just buy a Travoy than to pay through the nose for a real Travoy hitch to use with an off-brand luggage roller. A tandem bicycle stoker stem is designed to attach the vertically oriented Captain's seatpost to the horizontally oriented Stoker stem. For the flexible coupling I would consider several bungee cords in parallel.

MrYummieandMe

Projects like this---how to connect a load-bearing trail-along unit to the bike---allows us to show what ingenious and adaptive monkeys we are! I like the DIY Travoy of the OP, but more than that, I like that he made one himself! Personally, I don't know about bungies in parallel to duplicate the flex connector, but you probably are on to something. After laying my bike down a couple times with the Travoy-ish connector, it has softened to the point of actual flexibility, and my gut instincts say the engineering and design-build behind the flex connector and the hitch, individually as well as combined, is far superior to a short sheaf of several bungies. While not cheap, they're not prohibitively expensive. The flex connector is regularly available for either square or round tubing in the under $20 range, and retails for $22...I got mine for $18 or 19, I believe; the hitch was $25, and is well-engineered to facilitate the connector, and creates a steady, stable coupling under motion (man that sounds awesome...sorry!). The connector on the old school Y-hitch will disassemble a there is a flex connector there-in: so that may be a cheap option to find that part in any trailer project. I didn't discover this fact until after I had already bought my flex connector. My 20+ year old Burley was an almost unheard of $75 from a pair of righteous ladies in Milwakee, Oregon, and I use the heck out of my "pick up truck" configuration. I'm just not sure I feel the whole Travoy design. I'm not pushing the trailer over it on others, I hope, but describing my project, but I feel it is far more versatile than the Travoy, which feels very limited in it's utilitarian capacity: how much can you actually carry? How does it handle in corners? It does seem more "polite" than the standard trailer designs, which do have the ability, unfortunately, to shock some drivers into making poor decisions, like starting to pass behind the bike before realizing a trailer is there. The Travoy seems like a clever urban commuter idea, but how do they tour?

bikebikebike

I just got a burley during a REI sale
I am extremely unimpressed with its build quality and find to be extremely overpriced for what it is
It has the build quality of a bad Walmart bike and several sloppy design features
The Wike appears to be far superior and I think a homemade Version would have to be pretty bad to be worse
The only thing that I think that the Burnley excels in is in looking good from a distance

Miller72

Using only materials I had on hand I created a very load capable trailer that with a fitted tarp and small cleat style straps...I have a versatile, adaptable trailer for any of my needs.

Pallet
Nuts, bolts and washers
Oak stain
The landfill pick pile free child carrier



Removed the shell and using pallet boards the dimensions were perfect. I trimmed them to 40" or 44" length and utilized 3 others for cross supports beneath


12, 3/8" Diameter bolts, washers and lock washers.


Undercarriage visual


The hitch assembly that came with the trailer child carrier


Deck removed to stain as one piece


Stained(liberally), clear coat(heavy), reassembled



Love the versatility the open deck allows


Already working for me


Heavy load full of camp stoves and fuel


Sleek, slim, lightweight

Thanks for looking.

Any feedback, opinions and thoughts always welcome...I would love to hear what anyone might include, add, eliminate, do entirely different...let's hear it lol!

MikeyMK

Bike trailers are good but they can be a bit weighty and the hitches tend to be poor. Mine is the Avenir Cleveland.

But I wanted something bigger. So I made this.
Carrying a lot of weight is fine, the secret is to keep it as low as possible, and don't put all the weight on the tail.

MrYummieandMe

Nice! I used cedar fence boards to form the base of my Burley mod. The 2x4s might get heavy, though you did seal them. I think stipping the trailer down to make a flatbed is an awesome expansion to a bicycle's capabilities! I love my trailer, and it takes a beating. Great job!

MrYummieandMe

Thanks for reviving the thread! I think you might be the only person who feels that way. I don't know Wike, personally. My Burley trailer is modded from the exact same trailer I used to take my son down dirt fire trails in when he was younger. He just turned 29! I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that it's a surprisingly cheap product, though Burley does make entry-level products. My trailer was top-of-the-line, and its build quality shows! An amazing bit of kit...nearly 30 years on that still hauls lots of weight. Maybe not tons, but definitely 100+ pounds, on occasion. What's a Wike?

bikebikebike

Wike is a Canadian trailer maker. https://wicycle.com/ nice stuff, a bit clunky in ways but very accessible/maintainable/adaptable.
They also make a tow behind sign carrier that is neat.
I have a BOB and a big two wheel kid trailer.
The Travoy flexes on the plastic hinges and wheels wobble. "Banjo" fitting is stiff as a rock and torques the seattube such that many bike makes ,Brompton for one , say not to use it.
I know the gushing reviews it gets and am glad it appears to hold up , and now that they are carrying replacement hinges I am assuming they are repairable, something they were not a year ago.
That they need to carry them is interesting, implying demand, and I had seen several listed with broken hinges
If you have seen vids of them or watched a loaded one from the side , the hinges flex and bounce all over
as an inexpensive light trailer it is ok, and I know that , like most trailers , they get overloaded and abused.
Nice to know they seem to be able to take it, but I find it overpriced for its quality, which did not impress me
when compared to $100 direct sales chinese trailers. Maybe the quality has changed since it was first released
or that the most enthused are very light users where most anything will suffice.

It may be a price point thing, as many of the European trailers start at $500, and that may be what one needs to have better design.

tim24k

Why not just buy a suitcase the turns into a trailer? Bike Friday has them.

MikeyMK

Mine will go up a 5ins kerb at 20 mph without a problem. Not sure how a suitcase on tiny wheels, with no suspension, is gonna manage on the MUP/trails...

bikebikebike

I'm impressed.
I found mine flipped easy on even small bumps, mitigated somewhat by lowering the mount and lowering tire pressure
Flipped about every 3 miles city street riding with the dahon

MikeyMK

Hard tyres and no suspension is key to flipping at every bump - nothing absorbs the energy so it all goes into the frame and chucks it over.

First thing to do is get the fattest tyres you can find. If it has 20in wheels you can get 2.5in BMX at least, some fat bikes are 20s, but I just put barrow wheels on (with proper sealed bearings pressed in). This way you can reduce tyre pressure without adding much drag.

This alone, even with a rigid axle, will stop most bump flipping.

Ghazmh

I had a Wike kid trailer and it was such a well designed product. I sold it once the kids outgrew it. Several years later I bought a Burly Nomad for grocery shopping. It was pricey and although it was targeted to a touring crowd it works well for my needs. After almost 3 years of weekly use it developed a small hole on the bottom.

bikebikebike

Follow up
My experience is with a 20" bike with hitch pivot 5" forward of the rear contact patch
height was not a variable though tire pressure above 40 made it worse.
On a 27" diamond frame bike with the pivot 7.5" forward of contact patch the Travoy was profoundly better behaved

linberl

The Travoy works great on my 20" single speed Dahon Mu Uno. I brought 40lbs of dog food, a 6 lb detergent and various other Costco stuff home yesterday. 50lbs plus trailer. No probs. But then I'm riding on the street, or using a curb cutout (not jumping curbs), or on a pathway. Some of the streets are really crappy and it has rolled through potholes and never tipped, much to my surprise. The angle of the bracket to the hitch and trailer tire pressure matters. If you need to jump curbs with the trailer, for some reason, you need to lower the trailer tire pressure to around 20psi, not the stated 35.

bikebikebike

@ linberl Thanks. Weight of your loaded rig(~60+bike) and single speed implies pretty slow travel. Unless you got some legs on you.
With lesser loads and at speeds > 10mph , does it behave? also have you used it with the Pakit which is a 16"er, if I recall?

FOLLOW UP:
I have a pretty wide range of bikes from 16 to 29", and the Travoy is pretty stable on the big ones (tipped 3x in ~280miles).
This has been perplexing. New QR mount they have looks interesting. Tire pressure didn't make much difference, some had suggested that. Same with mount height and weighting.
It may be that a combination of wider gearing on the foldies makes me more uneven in pedaling and makes lateral seat post oscillation worse, and this led to my tipping maybe once a mile, with the slightest provocation.
On the bigger bikes the Travoy has been good with light weight and good ease of use.

Geepig

The lower pressure will slow the response to any input, and it may be that if the center of the load is above about the trailer axle and the distance between the wheels relatively narrow, then you have to lower the pressure to prevent the trailer from jumping up on one side beyond the ability for gravity to drag it back down. The faster and/or harder one rides, the more often the problem will occur.

The higher the mount on the frame, more likely a tip is to occur unless one happens to ride precisely vertical all the time - because every time one leans to the left it will reduce the load on the trailer wheel on the right. If the damping on a seat column is high then it will take longer for a wheel on the trailer to lift and to land, which is good but then very bad if you happen to clip a bump on that side or a pothole one the other. I can see why kiddie trailers mount so on the bike frame.

I get the feeling that rather than compromising on tire pressure a better answer might be to invest in some form of damped independent suspension, keeping the mounting point low, maximising the distance between the wheels and minimising the distance between the axle centreline and the centre of mass (trailer+load).

Of course, I could be completely wrong

bikebikebike

@geeping, I haven't seen many (rare as heck) trailers with independent suspension, but there are a few.
It's a weighty matter.
Similarly they tend to mount low, on the axle.
That said my Travoy sucks on my 20" Dahon's and is a treat on the 622 wheeled road bikes.
Haven't tried it on my 26'ers or 16'ers or 12's.
but I don't like dragging upside down trailers in traffic, so will defer to what I know works.
Got the new hitch , like the QR , but it hits my light/radar (Thicker)

bjjoondo 

Just built up this homemade from a old Burley Child Carrier Trailer on Feb. 1st. Photo is the "successful test ride" on Feb. 2nd. It pull's easy will be using for FOOD and larger items, My old truck is having expensive transmission and other problems so we will be going CAR FREE soon and needed a trailer as on our meager retirement income we can't even DREAM of affording a better truck! Did some changes to the way I added support bracing for the tub. Used 1" wide, 3/8 in. thick steel bar stock, 3 pieces 1 full length to make a support spine, then 2 short going across the wide part, used U-bolts with Wing Nuts for holding on the Tub so it comes off and on quickly! (added 2/20/21).

zorkist

Hi, I'm new here.
I have 2 homemade 'Burley Travoy style' trailers I like to share.
Hope I can post pictures soon.

veganbikes

If you enjoy bikes and get to posting in other threads you will be able to post pictures in no time. However keep in mind the date of some of these threads and try to keep to more active threads. Threads from a month or two ago fine but if years have passed probably best to create a new one.

zorkist

This is my homemade "Burley Travoy style" made from an external frame backpack and a heavier duty one made from raw components.