Now that we sold the car and just have an old, dear but clumsy van with no power steering that’s a barge to drive round town - unless you’re a bus driver trained in the Indian Himalayas and can muscle your way round hairpin bends with grace and ease - I’m getting more and more use from my Beast of Burden and Y-Frame.
Trailers are uber versatile, as you can carry all kinds of awkwards shapes in them. From bags of shopping to cardbox boxes, to trips to B&Q and beyond. In one easy step you have both a utility bike, and something that will carry a cargo of possessions around the word. When we bought Cara’s lovely new Cotic Soul, we picked up all the bits with our trailer from Ben at Bike, across town. This pic is from when we were off to do a shoot for Cycling Plus in the centre of Bristol.
Trailers are fun. Loading up them up makes every outing into a mini-expedition. People point and wave. In India, kids try and jump on like miniature stunt men. The other day some blokes in a lorry packed with scrap metal beeped and gave me a big thumbs up. And the nice thing is it’s really no big effort: leaving the car behind fills you with a disproportionate amount of feel-good-factor and goodwill.
Burning down some Ladakhi singletrack…
Taking Bonnie down to the beach…
Kindred spirits… Kind of.
There’s lots of other interesting trailers about. Here’s some of my favourites:
www.edinburghbicycle.com who do the Revolution Bob-a-like, which flat packs like Ikea.
Not quite a trailer:
And the daddy of cool ultility bikes, Surly’s Big Dummy:
Hi Cass and Cara,
Hope you are both well. Think Philip would be very happy to see his invention being used in Bristol. Josh is busy trying to design a special carrier which fits a Bob specifically for carrying bikes
Take Care,
Michael.
PS. Cass, better get the washing up done before Cara gets back.
Hi Michael,
The BOB mesh bungee has seen some good use, and I like the idea of a BOB to carry bikes! I used it to pick up a test bike just the other day, worked a treat.
Have a good Christmas,
Cass