El Toro Trailer, Updated

You probably don't remember but a while back, I did a posting on kayak trailers that could be towed behind a bicycle.  The tow bar on that one broke.  The fundamental problem on that one was that it was made out of a fairly skinny piece of redwood that just wasn't strong enough.  This time I used oak.  Oak is stronger but the bar sticking out from the trailer is still about 8 foot long and so it flexes quite a bit.  When you're pedaling, the rhythmic motion of the pedaling sets up a back and forth oscillation of the trailer which is not only annoying but also slows down progress.

There it is with an El Toro loaded up for a test run. The length of the tow bar might seem extreme, but it has to be long enough to tow 20 foot (7m) kayaks.

I knew how to fix the oscillation problem which is by adding some cross braces in the form of a triangle, the universal stable polygon. But due to lack of ambition, I never got around to it.  But since the tow bar broke and I had all the tools out to replace it, it was time to add the bracing as well.  Mission Accomplished! as George Bush would say.

And the view from the rear.  The El Toro, an invention of the Richmond Yacht Club is 8 foot long and 4 foot wide.

Tow bar triangulated with two side braces for lateral stability.

And the link from the tow bar to the bicycle.  I should shorten that. Next time.

kayak trailer 2.0

Diane got release 2.0 of her kayak trailer off the ground.  This one works much better than Release 1.0.  It's a basic off the shelf bike trailer with minimal mods, the main one being an extended tube connecting the trailer to the hitch.

The kayak is held in place by two bicycle inner tubes. 
Next project, how to get this rig on the trans-bay ferry.

Two years before the mast in a post apocalyptic kayak trailer

I was checking the stats on my blog and I found that the kayak trailer blog entry had the most hits lately followed by post apocalyptic look and feel followed by two years before the mast.
Now I think what happens is that people search for certain things and then they follow the links and when the link takes them to my page,  I get a hit.  I suspect that most of these hits are sorry, wrong number kind of hits.  What I'm posting about isn't really what they're looking for. 
For instance, people searching for kayak trailer probably are searching for something you can tow behind a car, not something you can tow behind a bicycle.  And people searching for post apocalyptic are probably searching for who knows what, perhaps descriptions of the rapture? Flesh eating Zombies? 
Come to thing of it, I should do at least one blog on flesh eating zombies and see what happens to my page hits.  Two years before the mast with flesh eating zombies.  I will work on that.  Have to get some video or at least photos. 
stay tuned

Kayak Trailer

Diane built a ten foot kayak partly for ease of storage and partly for light weight and partly because she wanted to be able to trailer it behind her bicycle, her primary mode of transport aside from walking.  The kayak will be her primary mode of water transport.

 

The base of the kayak trailer is the undercarriage of a folding baby buggy.
 

Linkage to the bike is via a piece of plastic tubing and of course bicycle innertube lashings.

Only problem with release 1.0 of the bike trailer is that the kayak sits up too high and the springs in the buggy suspensions enable a back and forth oscillation in response to the pedaling action of the bike rider.  Release 2.0 coming up soon.