This page is about many ideas on how to safely trailer your trike.
Nearly everyone comes up with their own innovative way of carting their trike from one end of Australia to the other (or somewhere in between). A small box trailer can be quite adequate, and some put their trike on the back of a utility or into a caravan. Most are home built but some are specially built.
And of course, once you have transport for the trike base sorted out, you have to work out how you are going to transport the wing. Many carry their wing on top of their vehicle, but you have to bear in mind the weight of the wing and how easily you will place it 'up there'.
When we purchased our trike we drove a sedan. We are reminded fairly frequently that we aren’t getting any younger, so we always go for the easiest way available to us. Our decision to go with a trailer with wing holders proved great for us, particularly on occasions when we arrived home late and could just unhitch the trailer and push it aside, often not touching it again for several days.
After seeing friends’ trailers, we approached Wayne Sternberg at Ballarat to make our tilt trailer which allowed us to load the trike on and off fairly easily. It has three tracks, two wider tracks on the outer edge of the trailer for the back wheels of the trike, and a central track for the front wheel.
A wire attached to a winch at front of trailer has a handle that allows us to unwind the wire lowering the back of the trailer to ground level.
One problem we have encountered is that without the weight of the wing the trike engine tends to make it ‘back heavy’. The weight of the engine at the back sometimes allows the front wheel to lift up off the trailer. Once you are aware it can happen, if you are quick enough it isn’t much of a problem as the person at the back applies enough leverage on the trike to keep the front wheel up in the air while you continue backing it clear of the trailer. It isn’t a good look and can quickly become expensive if the trike swings slightly sideways and decides to come back down on the trailer framework instead of back into the trailer tracks.
Once the trike is on the trailer, we use a large variety of ropes and tie-down straps to tie it securely in place. When you hear shocking stories of trikes and trailers parting company enroute it tends to make you ever cautious. To us, the tying down (or when unpacking the untying) is the longest part of the procedure.
At the back and front of our trailer we insert two upright posts which hold our wing carrier cradles. When the wing is in place, it overhangs by about two metres past the back of the trailer and another metre or so over the boot of the car at the front. The front post holds a swivel cradle which tilts out to the side allowing us to load that first, and then it pivots while the wing is swung toward the trailer and loaded onto the back post. We then push the front post upright and secure it in place with a bolt.
Trike wings vary in design and weight, and I always found our wing to be very heavy, particularly when you are trying to lift it above shoulder height.
After a few years we changed vehicles to a 4WD. The immediate problem was where to put the front of the wing on the trailer. Back to Wayne Sternberg.
He lengthened the post on the front and brilliant! When the front post tilted to the side, he attached the wind-up winch wire from the tilt trailer mechanism using the same winch and handle wound the front post upright above the height of the 4WD. So all ended up the same as previous except the trike wing now rode on an angle. Solution for that was to make a sling to sit the back end of the wing into and attach to the back post to prevent the wing sliding backward when in transit.
I will keep adding other trailering methods as I track them down. All are interesting and occasionally you will find an idea that will solve problems you are encountering.
