Bike Trailers - Wandertec Bongo

We have the very first Wandertec Bongo trailer in Europe.

Ours is the "small" size trailer, which weighs just 6.5 kg (14.5 lbs) and has a load bed size of 63 cm x 38 cm (25 inches x 15 inches).

The Bongo makes a surprisingly lightweight package. All the parts arrived in one cardboard box.






The light weight is in part due to the frame being of aluminium. It also makes for a very rigid construction.








The wheels are radial spoked, 16 inch (ETRTO 305) size. which looks nice, have aluminium rims and hubs, and spin very freely.






The trailer uses the well established Chariot trailer mount. We already have this on other trailers, so it means we can swap between bikes easily. Earlier I showed how I retrofitted this hitch to our dog trailer.


The wheels mount and unmount simply by pushing in the centre of the hub, which makes a locking mechanism withdraw.






It took just a few minutes to assemble the trailer, but it was a couple of weeks before I got around to using it !

Note that the load bed as supplied is not the maximum size which will fit between the wheels.


The trailer comes with straps which can be used to attach many different shapes to the top, but I will make a slightly oversized basket to fit between the wheels and carry more things conveniently.

More later when we've had a chance to get more use from the trailer !

Keeping the beaches clean

The local council has a fleet of cargo carrying bicycles which are used by people doing work such as keeping the beaches and other areas of the city clean. They're painted with just the same colour-scheme as the vans, and the same scheme as the council's normal bikes. Typically for a job requiring a few workers these bakfietsen are outnumbered by the "normal" council bikes.

And underneath, here's another one in the city centre (with a standard council bike on the left and a "civilian" bakfiets in the background).

Bike Trailers - Dog trailer

In the last two weeks I've covered our other two bicycle trailers, the BOB Yak and the Carry Freedom City. Now it's the turn of our largest trailer.

Commercial bike trailers for dogs are available, but our dog trailer was constructed out of an old child trailer that we were given five years or so ago. The plastic "tent" part was well past its prime, and in any case not particularly pleasant for our dog to sit in. Instead of using this, I stripped it back to its frame and...

...made a basket on a plywood base to go on top.

So it stayed until very recently, despite the constant aggravation caused by the inadequately designed hitch mechanism, which tried to clamp onto one of the chain tubes, but would often become loose.

Luckily, such clamp type hitches can be replaced. I used the Chariot hitch.

It's very easy to replace most hitches.

In this case I needed an allen key and a spanner to remove the old hitch.

The same allen key, spanner, nut and bolt now hold the new hitch.

Note that as the "lollipop" was a bit thinner than what came off the trailer, I also needed a bit of shimming here. I found that a slide of narrow inner tube exactly filled the gap in the case of my trailer and hitch, and as the lollipop itself is flexible this is probably rigid enough.

You connect the trailer by sliding the ball into the cast hitch which is attached permanently to the bike by the wheel nut or quick release.

Then you push through the pin and it's held securely by a rubber part.

The customer inspects my work... We then went for a test ride, and another walk in the woods.

The trailer is much more usable with a decent hitch mechanism.

We sell some solutions for carrying dogs by bicycle.

There's also a video of a previous adventure with Harry by bike.

Bike Trailers - Carry Freedom City

The Carry Freedom City trailer is our newest bicycle trailer. Judy used it on Wednesday last week to make a 75 km round trip to pick up 35 kg of bicycle racks.

Unlike the BOB trailer covered last week, this is a recent addition. It has a few unique characteristics which make it useful for us.


This photo was taken on the outward journey, showing Judy's bike pulling the trailer. Note that it's empty in this shot but there is a good view of the bag which comes with the trailer.

This is not so effective for carrying large amounts of things, but you can bungie on considerably more on top of the bag as shown above.


A close up of the way the trailer attaches to the bike. You have to remove the left wheel nut or quick release and re-install it with the hook attachment. That's it.

One of the outstanding things about this trailer is how it folds completely flat and can be unfolded in seconds.

Ideal for someone who lives in a flat with limited bicycle storage (we don't), or if you want to be able to take a bicycle trailer by train. In most places it is not allowed to take bicycle trailers on trains even if you are allowed to take your bike. This folding trailer may well be a good way of getting around the restriction, as when folded it really doesn't look that much like a trailer. One day I will try a cycle / train tour with folding trailer and folding bike.

There is just one drawback to the City trailer. I find that the supplied bag is a little too small for most uses. However, it's quite OK to attach other things on top, as you see in the first photo here, and at some point I'm going to get around to making a basket to fit on top of this trailer for shopping trips.

Another review of the same trailer.

Bike Trailers - BOB Yak

We've got three different bike trailers, and they're used in different ways. All three of them have been used in the last few days and I think all three are worth a few words.

Our oldest is the BOB Yak trailer. In the early 1990s when we lived in Cambridge I read on the HPV (Human Powered Vehicle) mailing list about the newly introduced BOB Yak single wheel trailer. Much to my surprise, a few weeks later when I visited my parents in Somerset, their local bike shop happened to have a BOB Yak before any had been officially imported to the UK. It had been left behind by an American cycle tourist who passed through the area and sold his equipment before returning home. That's how I came to have one of the very first BOB trailers in the UK. Thirteen years later we still have that trailer and it's still used regularly.

It has its limitations. You can only transport relatively light loads, up to thirty kg or so. Load it up too heavy and you will have a hard time keeping the bike upright. Put too much weight on before heading down a steep hill and you discover there is a speed at which it starts steering you rather than the other way around. Because it's a single wheel trailer it's not the best choice for shopping because it doesn't support itself, and of course if you want to carry children or pets, you need to look elsewhere. However used for what it excels at, fair distances and speeds, and it's wonderful. A single wheel trailer never tips when you corner. I find the BOB works excellently with recumbent bikes.

I used to make a basket especially to fit the trailer, which meant you could simply sling stuff in instead of having to muck about with zips.

The photo shows the trailer in use on Tuesday when I took it to Groningen with me and returned with a roll of packaging. A light load, but not an especially aerodynamic one. A while ago I made a blog post including a video showing the trailer in use. More trailer posts to come...

Xtracycle Kick-Back Review

The photo shows my Xtracycle with Kick-Back stand relaxing in the sun, and remaining upright with 80 kg in the panniers and front basket.

Emigrating is difficult. Setting up a business is difficult. Learning a language is difficult. Doing all these things just at the time that a global recession starts to bite is extra difficult. As a result, I've been doing a part time job delivering mail in order to earn a bit more money. The Xtracycle is the bike I've been using for this.

Unfortunately, my Xtracycle is one of the very early ones which had a weak point in the design at the point where the standard kick stand attaches. This broke off, leaving me without a kick stand. That was OK for trips between home and the post office or shops, both of which places have good quality wheel supporting racks which would keep the bike upright as I loaded it. However, it was a complete non-starter for a delivery job which involved standing the bike outside hundreds of homes each day.

In any case, the standard kick stand on the Xtracycle simply wasn't designed to keep the sort of weight we're dealing with upright.

I looked around for solutions and came across the Xtracycle Kick-Back. This is a specially made stand which fits into the tubing at the front of the Xtracycle.

You can see the parts which come in the box on the right. Everything you need to fit it is supplied.

As my FreeRadical is a very early production example it didn't have the holes required for the spring loaded clips also used by other accessories such as the wideloader. More modern FreeRadicals won't need this extra step of drilling holes.

In fact for most people it is a very quick job to install the stand. The only tools you will need are a screwdriver for doing up the screw which holds a stretchy cord to the rear stay - this is what provides the force to make the stand spring up - and a 5 mm allen key for adjusting the height of the stand. You want it so that it just forces one wheel off the ground when the bike is standing. If it is too high then you will find it is a considerable effort to park your bike.

I found I also needed to cut a couple of centimetres off the length of the black inserts for the stand in order that I could have the stand at a low enough height. I also recommend using copper grease when these are inserted. I ride in all weathers and without it the parts would seize in place.

And there you have it. The bike can now stand.

It's a very good product. The only one of its kind made especially for the Xtracycle, and I have found it to work extremely well.

It's been fitted since January 13th. That may not seem such a long time, but my bike computer tells me that I've covered over 500 km with the delivery schedule since then, and used the stand many thousands of times. Combined with a trailer, I've used the bike to haul as much as 225 kg ( about 500 lb ) of mail at once. It was as struggle to ride up the slightest of inclines, but the bike didn't fall over when I stopped.

If you want a stand which really works with your Xtracycle, this is the only one available which is specifically designed to do the job. It works extremely well and I suggest not bothering to consider any alternatives. It is Available here from BikeTrailerShop.com.

Our Xtracycle now
We now use our Xtracycle. with the Kick-Back, to make deliveries for our webshop. The bike has had several more upgrades since this article was written, and they're detailed in another blog post.

The Xtracycle is not the best tool for all jobs, but it does do what it does extremely well. I've lots more details of the Xtracycle on my web page about it. The front racks are here.

Collecting the Christmas Tree

This morning I took the Xtracycle out to take some customer's bike baskets to the post office and also collect a Christmas tree.

One of my local bike shops turned out to be selling trees, so I went no further.

As ever, my journey was direct and almost entirely free of cars. A lot of roads don't provide through routes for drivers, who are funnelled together on what are often less direct routes.

The bicycle road along the canal is the most obvious example of this idea. It's wonderful to cycle along, leading directly from the centre of the city past the suburbs on the west where we live and right out to the new housing estate built on the very edge of the city. It is impossible to drive along this route for far, so the only cars you see are a few using it for access to homes.

The video shows the return route, mostly along a bicycle road:


There is another short video of the same bicycle road.

This isn't the first time our Christmas tree has been brought home by Xtracycle.