I have a little 4x6ft landscaping trailer that I picked up at Home depot about seven years ago, which I use mostly for hauling my riding mower and the occasional pile of materials. However, wanting to do some dirty rides farther away from home, I've decided it may be better (at times) to trailer the bike instead of chewing the knobbies on the superslab. Since the trailer bed was so short that I had to park the bike on it diagonally, I decided to modify it a little.
At first, I was toying with the idea of enlarging the bed bu a foot, but I ultimately decided against it. Instead, I opted for cutting an opening in the railing up front, towards the tongue.
First, I pulled the tongue off and extended it by a foot. In the stock configuration, the trailer was way too short and kept cutting back whenever I was backing up with an empty trailer. This not only enlarged the wheelbase, but it also gave me enough room to do what I wanted to do.
With the tongue a foot longer, I cut an opening in the front rail, and welded a couple of pieces of angle steel to make sure it was stiff enough. Then I welded two 45-degree braces made out of 1 inch square stock between the outside corners and the tongue, and added a piece of 1/4 inch steel plate welded to the bottom rail, the tongue, and the two 45-degree braces.
Once everything was ground nice and smooth, I painted the fabrication pieces and bolted on a cheap Harbor Freight wheel chock. I decided on the HF chock because it is self-locking, and works well with the 21 inch front wheel on my WRR. HF had it on sale this past weekend, and I ended up paying only $32 for the chock - at that price, I could not even make one at home. Of course, I changed their fasteners (came with grade 3 bolts) to grade 8 bolts. The chock is bolted directly to the steel plate welded in place.
No more parking the bike diagonally! I believe that,set-up this way, the bike will trailer rather nicely.
I'll be testing this next weekend on my trip to NE Vermont.
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