hauling other bikes; bike train

[todd]

i know you can lash a bike or 2 onto the freeradical, but then there's no room for passengers or much else. if you could mount a roof-rack-style quick release dummy axle for the front fork of the bike to be hauled on the rear of the freeradical chassis, then you could let the bike roll behind the freeradical; you'd just have to deal with the extra front wheel. now, supposing there were a rider on the rear bike, too: you'd have an instant tandem. and suppose the second bike also had a freeradical attached, and so on. how many could you string together?

[todd]

i've done it: http://tinyurl.com/c0ir , http://tinyurl.com/c0if .

i have yet to find a victim willing to try riding on the back bike. riding around, you can't tell it's there.

next i need to hang a trailer - say, a bob or burley - off the rear bike.

i suppose this might be a good way to get a low-gear fixie or single-speed offroad bike to a trailhead quickly over roads. or not.

you know you're on the right track when you hear one SUV driver say to the next "now that's just silly" as you pass them with this sort of getup.

[BikerSDF]

The picts look like a great setup but there is one thing that you have to watch out for. If the mounting bracket used doesn't allow the front fork to swivel up and down then you are inviting trouble. I did something similar to mount a bike on the back of my Bell biketrailer. I originally used a standard Yakima front fork mount that was designed to be mounted in the back of a pick-up bed or SUV to hold the bike upright. The problem is that the quick release on these clamps the bike's fork against it's rigid frame and doens't allow for any movement. This is fine in a vehicle but in our case the bike must move up and down some to match the road. If the design doesn't allow for movement eventually the bike will work loose no matter how hard you clamp it. I dropped my son's bike at about 25 m.p.h. before I figured this out.

I fixed my problem by using an old front hub with quick release. The problem then is figuring out how to mount the hub securely.

It looks like a Yakima rack mounted bracket was used. I don't know if this type allows for the required movement or not but beware.

[Bikesmith]

I've done this, too, using the standard pickup mount rack. The rear strut assembly of the FreeRadical is not strong enough to support the weight of an actual rider back there, but I have had no problem with unloaded bikes. The fork mount is usually clamped hard enough to hold the fork firmly, but not so hard as to immoblilze it. I have not had a problem with the skewer loosening, but it is something to be cautious of. My longest trip towing another bike was about ten miles through city traffic. I've towed bikes five times so far, and the only downfall has been losing a front wheel; besure to secure! Val Kleitz, Bikesmith

[parepidemos]

I wish I had visited this thread earlier: one of the first things I did with my xtracycle after getting used to it on and offroad was buy a Burley Piccolo. The guy at REI said it would probably fit fine, and he was wrong. The good news: Steve at Steve's Bike Shop in Altadena CA made it happen. The Piccolo attaches to Burley's proprietary luggage rack, which is just narrow enough to fit between your freeloaders, but sticks up above Snapdeck level just a bit (too much). It attached fine to the rear axle/cassette, but Steve had to weld a custom bar to reach from the front of the Burley rack to my now-unused rear brake mounts. It's AWESOME. Will post photos soon.

[quincywally]

I also have done the truck mount bike tow. No problems. I have not noticed the QR loosening. And I ride a hilly route. Put the front wheel in the free loader bag and attach the middle strap THROUGH the spokes!
I will however make notice of the QR loosening possiblility. I will make a hub conversion kit if I haul more bikes in the future. It would make hooking the bike up a little easier because it would be a standard QR and most of the truck QRs are harder to operate than a standard.

[parepidemos]

Sorry it's taken me so long to share a few photos; life bit me and shook me like a chew toy for a while there. But here is that photo of my beloved Xtracycle, my oldest son on the Snapdeck; my younger son on the Burley Piccolo; my toddler daughter in the Burley trailer. Four people, two sets of pedals, one Xtracycle train! "We're the longest bike in the world!" exults my 6-yr-old on the Piccolo, as we pass folks on the back roads. I am a little reluctant to take the Train into traffic, though...

(How exactly do you attach a Piccolo to a Free Radical? Ask Steve, of Steve's Bike Shop in Pasadena. He waved his magic welding wand and... well, he'd explain it better that I would. Or see my previous post.)

http://homepage.mac.com/parepidemos/PhotoAlbum1.html

(this is a vestigial page just to share these photos w. y'all-- I hope to have a better website up sometime this summer, & will post the new url here in the forums when I do.)

[quincywally]

So Jesus says to God,
"Oh, My Dad, that is a long bike"
And God Says Ah-Me!

[jloc803]

For anyone who's interested, on occasions when I pick up my daughters from school and my oldest "claims" to be too tired to ride her bike, I insert the front wheel of her 20" bike into one of the FreeLoaders and strap it in. I've done this twice and have had no problems over the short and slow, 1.5 mile ride home.

[veloboy]

Has anyone worked out how to attach a stoker bike that allows the rear of the Xtra to take the weight of the stoker?

I am contemplating a mod that will reinforce the front fork mount by via a rigid strut attached to the underside of the snap deck. Hopefully that would brace the mount (stopping it from swivelling down under the weight of the rider) whilst transferring some of the load to the rest of the frame (distributing the bending force on the rear frame to the rest of the freerad)

I'm thinking of making it height adjustable to account for different front wheel sizes.

Any ideas? Would it fly or am I asking for a world of pain?

Veloboy

[parepidemos]

Are you looking to build a detachable-tandem sort of rig without a lot of movement, or a more flexible trail-a-bike sort of rig?

If the former, I don't see how you'll avoid eventual stress fractures in whatever you build. If the latter, check out the Burley Piccolo for ideas.

I cut my snap deck in half and mounted a Burley Piccolo rack in between my freeloaders. (it fits! you just need to engineer a long rod to replace the short things that are supposed to attach to your seat stays.) The Burley U-joint is wonderful: all the stoker's "front-wheel" weight is perfectly centered over my rear wheel, very stable even in sharp turns at slow speed. Vertical flex (going through culverts and over humps) is great too, no snagging of the too-long trail-a-bike boom on your luxuriously extended Free Radical. When the stoker suddenly stokes hard, the force is transmitted to your rear wheel not your seat post (a big consideration when one's bike is bent 30 degrees at the U-joint, waiting to turn left in an intersection...)

Not to say you need to buy Burley's (admittedly expensive) product, but it's such a simple, easy-on/easy-off solution, it's worth a reverse-engineer's look.