The dangers of trailers

[DGXSER]

I tow our boy scout troops tailer with my F150 CrewCab truck. Last year I towed it down from Cincinnati to Gatlinburg and up into the mountains to a campground in the park.

My truck has a simple four wire hookup and the trailer has a surge brake. The trailer weighs in at about 5k lbs with all the gear and food on it for a week of camping with 30 boys. I also had my gear in the truck and four people in the truck with me. Up and down all those hills and mountains I never once had an issue wiht the trailer wanting to come around on me. I also own a pop-up camper I tow all over the place with the same truck, never had an issue and I have had to come to some petty quick stops. Find a pop-up camper with mfg installed brakes.

Not saying brakes do not help, they can definitely be a plus. However, they are not a requirement to be safe.

Going back to the original situation, no amount of brakes help when the wheels are not on the ground. Brakes in a trailer are the same as in a car or on our bikes, they are useless when the friction between the tire and the road is exceeded by the force of the vehicles mass, or in this case, when the mass is so LITTLE it lifts off the ground and the wheels are not in contact. If the trailer raised up, swung around and hit the guy in the chest and head as stated, all the brakes in the world would not have helped.

[natemoen]

I tow our boy scout troops tailer with my F150 CrewCab truck. Last year I towed it down from Cincinnati to Gatlinburg and up into the mountains to a campground in the park.

My truck has a simple four wire hookup and the trailer has a surge brake. The trailer weighs in at about 5k lbs with all the gear and food on it for a week of camping with 30 boys. I also had my gear in the truck and four people in the truck with me. Up and down all those hills and mountains I never once had an issue wiht the trailer wanting to come around on me. I also own a pop-up camper I tow all over the place with the same truck, never had an issue and I have had to come to some petty quick stops. Find a pop-up camper with mfg installed brakes.

Not saying brakes do not help, they can definitely be a plus. However, they are not a requirement to be safe.

Going back to the original situation, no amount of brakes help when the wheels are not on the ground. Brakes in a trailer are the same as in a car or on our bikes, they are useless when the friction between the tire and the road is exceeded by the force of the vehicles mass, or in this case, when the mass is so LITTLE it lifts off the ground and the wheels are not in contact. If the trailer raised up, swung around and hit the guy in the chest and head as stated, all the brakes in the world would not have helped.

BUT if there had been brakes and it had helped slow it down in the first place then it may not have lifted off the ground. But either way his driving style must not have allowed enough room for him to adequately see what was going on in the first place so there was several factors so its really hard to say what really was the cause.

[bikerphil]

No F'n way I'd ever tow a trailer with a motorcycle. Bikes are dangerous enough just by themselves. JMO

[79XS11F]

BUT if there had been brakes and it had helped slow it down in the first place then it may not have lifted off the ground. But either way his driving style must not have allowed enough room for him to adequately see what was going on in the first place so there was several factors so its really hard to say what really was the cause.

I also agree with this. If the trailer had been equipped with brakes the wheels would have stayed on the ground because the trailer would have been braking at the same rate as the bike or even been braking a little harder then the bike if set up in that manor. The trailer would not have become air born if it was braking as well.
I also agree that trailer brakes are not a requirement for light trailers if the driver is planning every stop. It is however, the unplanned quick stops that create the danger. My camper is 30 feet long at 5000 pounds and I tow it with a pick up of similar weight. The trailer brake controller has a boost function that will increase trailer braking function if the device senses a quick stop. I feel the weight while pulling it but there are no issues with stopping.
Rob

[Jerry]

First, I am glad everyone will recover. Now a few thoughts on trailers and bikes.

I've towed a tailer for many years with different bikes. It is danerous. Bikes were never designed to handle weight behind the rear wheel; at best, a bike's design will handle the weight of a passenger.

I tow because I like to have creature comforts, such as a larger tent, air mattres, stove, even a camp chair. I tried packing my gear in saddlebags and on a luggage rack. Quite frankly, the top-heavy nature of this approach scared me more than trailering. I also keep a tripod handy on the rack for photo opps; trying to dig it out each time I wanted to stop was a real chore. Towing is the best solution for me, even though I acknowlede its inherent risks.

Those risks can be minimized through several approaches. First, learn to use your rear brake correctly when towing. Practice, practice, practice stopping with your tailer until your reactions become automatic. It is a different feeling and technique than riding solo.

Second, don't overload the bike. Most trailers I have seen are to big and heavy for the bike towing them. The XS / XJ has a loaded weight figure in the manual, exact number ecapes me now, but I worked it out for myself at one time and it turns out I can tow about 160 pounds. (I am a big guy, coming in at about 265 pounds.) When I first went looking for a trailer, almost all of them, including the HF units, start at about 150 - 175 pounds. I built my own with a tubular steel frame and Sears car-top carrier. With all my camp gear in it, set for a 7 - 10 day trip, total weight - including spare tire - comes in at about 165 pounds. Most commercial and home builts come in well over that figure. May be OK if you are running an 1800 CC Gold Wing or 84 cu in HD, but not an 1100 cc bike. Moral: take the time to research your bike' weight load capacity, and tow accordingly.

Third, small trailers do not benefit from brakes. They add unsprung weight, mass, and complicate the braking process. I use 8" wheels on my trailer because it puts the axle in line with the swing arm pivot points. High wheel trailers raise the center of gravity and complicate handling at any speed, more so in an emergency situation. They look cool, but function poorly. They can be made to work if you use a drop axle, but that again complicates construction.

A good trailer has a low center of gravity, is light, is wide enough and has enough tongue weight to track well. This last is critical, and is a sore point for home-builts. If you do not have enough tongue weight, the trailer will fishtail. I experimented with different lenghts when I built my trailer; first time there was not enogh weight and it began to fishtail somethg fierce. Even now I have to pack my heavy objects at the front of the trailer, and the spare is just behind the coupler. 15 - 20 percent of the trailer's weight should be on the tongue. In my case, this translates into 30 - 35 pounds. I have heard of to many stories where an owner took a home built up to speed and was thrown into a ditch when the unit began to fishtail. If you don't do your research and testing, you will get into trouble.

I use a different set of rear supsnsion settings when I trailer. Generally these consist of upping the rear shock air presure by about 8 pounds (My XJ and Concours both have air shock adjustments) and I increase the preload by 2 clicks. I learned the best settings theough experience, trying differnt settings until I got the handling I wanted. rear tire presure on both bikes is 40 pounds. Elite 3 on the XJ, Pilot GT on the Connie.

So, yes, trailering can be dangerous as well as satisfying. You need to do your due dilligence in acquiring a suitable trailer, then adjust your riding style and suspension settings to match, then practice towing until you feel comfortable enough to attempt a long trip. While this will not eliminate tha additinal dangers posed by towing a trailer, they will minimize the additional risks.

If your trailer needs brakes, it is to heavy for your bike. While brakes could help control straight-line stops, if your trailer is swinging due to improper weight load, insuficient tongue weight, or any other defect, I doubt brakes are going to save your bacon. I allow for increased stopping distances, about the same as you would for carrying a 165 pound passenger. Your brakes can handle this extra load without complaint, although I do run SS brake lines on both bikes. In any event, putting brakes on a 165pond trailer probably will not increase your over-all braking by much; the wheels are more likely to lock up than add any real braking After all, you are talking about a load of around 80 pounds per wheel; it isn't going to take much to lock them, particularly if you hit a bump and transfer any weight off the tire. If the trailer is already skidding sideways, the extra braking power will be nill.

My guess on this incident? Trailer had to little tongue weight, began fishtailing, and threw the guy into a spin. It nearly happened to me when I first built my trailer; it was only through experimentation and adjustments that I eliminated this problem. If this was the guy's first outing with this trailer I would be even more convinced this accident was a result of improper tongue weight.

[crazy steve]

....My guess on this incident? Trailer had to little tongue weight, began fishtailing, and threw the guy into a spin. It nearly happened to me when I first built my trailer; it was only through experimentation and adjustments that I eliminated this problem. If this was the guy's first outing with this trailer I would be even more convinced this accident was a result of improper tongue weight.

Jerry's post backs up pretty much everything I said... but I will disagree on two things.

Tongue weight: Just a slight disagreement here. Mine had a tongue weight of probably no more than 25 lbs fully loaded (certainly much less when empty or lightly loaded), and I never had any issues with tracking or swaying. Mine also wasn't homemade, but was an at-that-time commercially available unit. But I suspect this has more to do with the total design rather than a hard-and-fast rule, (on mine, the tongue was 50% of the total trailer length, 6' total, 3' tongue) and how the total weight is distributed. Like Jerry, I got the best 'handling' by packing heavier items ahead of the axle centerline when using the trailer to 'capacity'. My total trailer weight was very close to Jerry's.

As to the cause of the accident, that trailer was simply too heavy, too big, and too tall. I suspect that the 'too tall' played the biggest part; I mean, really, towing a trailer big enough to climb inside of, carpeted and with a sound system for chrissakes!!?? It had to be at least 4' tall, and when he jammed on the brakes, that high weight tried to keep going; having no other direction it could go, it went up and around...

[ManagerMike]

The hardest thing with putting brakes on the trailer is how to activate them. I pulled a u-haul once with brakes, it had a MC on the tongue and when stopping I hardly noticed it, and the harder it pushed on the back of the car the more the brakes applied. I wonder something like that could be rigged for a MC trailer?

That setup is called 'surge brakes' and are extremely effective, simple, and requires no adjustment, also happens to be expensive.
Always a downside...

[cywelchjr]

I have never seen a trailer brake set up like that. It sounds pretty worthless. Trailer brakes I have worked with (other than air brakes) are all electronic. There is a solenoid that is basically activated when you apply the brakes. Then there is a battery that applies the brakes in case of a disconnect.

It works really well. I bought a tent trailer that was pretty big that had that setup, but the tent portion turned out to be pretty thrashed, but I sold the chassis for what I paid to someone who turned it into a regular tow trailer.

Look at the biggest u-haul trailers, you will see the brake stuff on there. It works really well, you can feel the trailer behind you when speeding up and such, but hardly know it's there when stopping.

[Eveready1100]

I can relate to Jerry and his reasons for towing a trailer. Absolutely agree on the drawbar weight being more is better up to a point. My brake setup was prompted by the lack of stopping power from those awful ATE calipers on the front of my Special. I built the trailer, took it for a shakedown run over my favourite set of twisties, made a minor adjustment to the drawbar length, tested it again and it was perfect - except for the slight inconvenience of not being able to stop it. So I went about curing that problem.
Took me one weekend, one pair of torana disc hubs, one pair of XS11 rotors, one pair of ZZR600 calipers, lines and MC, a length of cable and a few bits of scrap steel. End result is totally controllable stopping.
Extra rear brake pedal




Controls cable hooked into top of lever (not pictured- still on trailer) which goes back to the master cylinder which actuates these.



They will lock the wheels if used harshly but also help rear tyre grip by applying more weight on the tyre through weight transfer which you don't get as much from an unbraked trailer. Result is that the Bike and trailer, fully laden and with pillion aboard stop better than the bike & rider alone.

[cywelchjr]

I can relate to Jerry and his reasons for towing a trailer. Absolutely agree on the drawbar weight being more is better up to a point. My brake setup was prompted by the lack of stopping power from those awful ATE calipers on the front of my Special. I built the trailer, took it for a shakedown run over my favourite set of twisties, made a minor adjustment to the drawbar length, tested it again and it was perfect - except for the slight inconvenience of not being able to stop it. So I went about curing that problem.
Took me one weekend, one pair of torana disc hubs, one pair of XS11 rotors, one pair of ZZR600 calipers, lines and MC, a length of cable and a few bits of scrap steel. End result is totally controllable stopping.
Extra rear brake pedal

Not reposting the pictures, but you gotta admit that's a pretty big and likely heavy trailer for these bikes. What's that thing weigh in at empty? Loaded? I believe it was mentioned earlier that following the general rules that these things shouldn't pull more than about 160lbs behind them, although I'll admit that brakes on the trailer will help, these things still don't have the stability a car or truck does. I'm guessing that thing trips the scales somewhere above 200lbs empty? Am I in the ballpark there? Add up the weight of these things and a rider and passenger, and it's not too hard to be over 1000lbs, and then put a trailer out behind it and what were adequate brakes become inadequate quickly as the rear tire tends to get lifted by the trailer making it even more likely to skid, and thowing even more onto the front brakes. SS brake lines will help, and I think that special pads are smaller than standard front pads (help me out here guys cause I'm not sure) which would give them a little less power as well. I frankly would be scared to try and pull that big thing behind my bike, even with the brakes on the trailer, cause the inertia of it trying to change lanes would be really scarry.

[crazy steve]

My last post to this thread, then do what you want to do...

While I admire Eveready's fab/design skills in coming up with a functioning solution for trailer brakes, the sheer size of his trailer scares the hell out of me and I wouldn't be caught dead towing it behind a bike; it's much too big... sorry.

Here's a cautionary tale, personally experienced. I feel very fortunate to have come out unscathed.

As I've mentioned, I towed a small trailer behind my XS for several years and never had any problems.... except once. I haven't mentioned it before now because it was a bit of a fluky deal and would extremely unlikely to happen to any trailer except this particular model. My trailer was a factory-built unit, made by a company long since out of business called CycleKamp. It was a nice peice, but had a major design flaw that I should have paid attention to; I guess in those days I was more trusting of the 'professionals'.

The flaw? It really didn't have a 'frame'. The structural components consisted of the fiberglass cargo box, with two side rails carrying the leaf springs/axle bolted through the box. There was also a rail bolted to the back ends of the side rails across the rear. The tongue was attached at two points; one bolt in the rear through that rail and the box, one in the front through the box only. Now, I looked at this early on, but trusting the designers (lesson learned...I have a much more skeptical eye now) and seeing how the fiberglass was about 1/4" thick and had two big washers sandwiching the 'glass, assumed it must be good. Well, it lasted several years, but the forward tongue bolt pulled through the box one day...

I was coming home from work, cruising at about 55-60 on a straight road when I felt a slight 'tug' at the rear; I almost turned around to see what it was, when the rear of the bike made a violent jerk to one side, literally moving the rear tire sideways several inches. Well, that got my attention so I concentrated on keeping the bike upright while the rear of the bike was viciously jerked back and forth. In what seemed like forever (but was probably 15-20 seconds), I struggled for control and got the bike stopped. I never touched the brakes; the handlebars jerked when the bike did, so I had a death grip on those.

What happened? When the forward bolt failed, the tongue pivoted on the rear bolt, 'steering' the trailer first one way until it flipped up on it's side, then it would reverse to the other side, repeating until I got it stopped. Both front corners of the box were chewed up, both hubcaps were mashed in, and it bent one wheel lip enough to break the tire bead.

The lesson here? I was towing the trailer all but empty; all that was in it was a few articles of clothing, a lunchbox, and my 'work' toolbox, which weighed no more that 35 lbs. I had no more than 110 lbs behind me, and it almost took me down. If it had been at it's 150 lb capacity, this may not have had quite as happy an ending. Now, I'll fully admit that this particular problem would never happen with a properly built trailer. But how about a tire failure? Or some other mechanical failure? Or hitting some debris? So you who are running large, heavy trailers, do you honestly think you'll keep control or even stay upright when you have 200+ lbs swinging around behind you? Or that trailer brakes would help? You may be betting your life...

The post mortem on the trailer: it wasn't beat up all that bad. One new wheel/tire, a pair of hubcaps, and some minor repair at the corners and it was fine. The lid never fit quite as well though... I did disassemble it and fab a full frame (duh!) and never had any issues after that. Upon close inspection, the '1/4 inch' thick fiberglass that the bolt pulled through wasn't... it was two single layers of cloth sandwiching EFFING cardboard filler!! JEEZUSS, what were they thinking??!!

[crazy steve]

Ok, one more post.... here's an ad from '78 for a Cycle Kamp trailer; this is a tent trailer. Mine looked much the same, but had a shorter box, about the same size as the rear, higher part of this one.

http://vintage-original-ads.com/Pict..._display_media

[Eveready1100]

I'm trying to find a better pic of the rig as that other shot does tend to distort the scale of things a bit. Here's one that shows it a bit more side on.



In its current spec, it weighs in at 126lbs empty. The whole body above the frame is either plastic or lexan so it doesn't weigh much at all.
Over this side of the pond, trailer manufacturers have hit top gear with plenty of companies offering units ranging from little 50 litre single wheelers, scores of fibreglass and aluminium bodied touring trailers up to the fully outfitted popup camper units that weigh in at around 350 lbs for the trailer/ tent frame/annexe alone and Motorcycle dealers are fitting towbars to new bikes as an accessory item, so I don't know what you guys did to upset yours over there.
On the home made front, refigerator bodies make a very popular body as you strip the fridge area out for storage, the freezer area makes an instant esky, and the compressor and coil area is closed in to make a great toolbox.

[Jerry]

Result is that the Bike and trailer, fully laden and with pillion aboard stop better than the bike & rider alone.

While I greatly admire the ingenuity with which this was done, I still believe this is a bad idea. You should be able to stop a 126 pound trailer (empty) with your stock brakes. I have never had a problem braking my fully-loaded trailer with either the XJ or my Connie, although I do not add a pillion passenger to the mix. Trailer, pillion, and rider? IMHO you are pushing that Special beyond safe limits, even with trailer brakes.

Main point I am trying to make is that trailering does add some dangers to riding a bike, but these can be mitigated though various means. It takes some experimentation and tweaking, particularly on home-built rigs. The accident described at the start of this thread is atypical of trailering. There are lots of bikes pulling trailers, and there are thousands of miles put safely on them every season.

[Kronk]

You want to see a scary trailer....

I'll get the pic off her and post it, but my cousin snapped a pic of a hardley towing a super B set up...

He had one trailer with 2 wooden kegs on it, and a second trailer with one wooden keg on it... (as long as it's shorter than 26 feet, this is perfectly legal here) each keg had a windshield attached to the top of it, a hole in the top, and a bulldogs head popping out of the hole... I'll try to find the pic now...