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Bob the trailer!

The YAK - Beast of Burden "BOB" trailer.

There are few items of touring equipment that are so effective as to change
the way you tour, or open up new possibilities, but the BOB trailer is one
of them. It's a simple design, a single small wheel supports the low slung
spaceframed trailer, which then clips onto a special quick release. The
trailer is articulated using nylon bushes just behind the rear wheel, and the
kit includes a 80 ltr nylon bag rather like a large quality sports bag,
basically the photo shows it all. 

The point is that this very light trailer (6 kgs) will carry one person's entire
cyclecamping kit: tent, sleeping bag, cooker, clothes - everything. Thus
loaded it will obviously slow the bike down up hills, but it has little effect
on the bike's handling, certainly less than the equivalent load carried on the
bike by more conventional means. Are you getting the point? For the price
of a quality pair of racks and full front and rear panniers you can have an
instantly detachable trailer that can be fitted to almost any bike... Going to
go on a long tour on your mountainbike where you want to spend every
other day unladen off road? Just hitch up the BOB, cycle to the campsite
and dump the load. Going cycletouring on your carbon fibre racing bike -
no problem. Got a baby seat on so you've no room for rear panniers - all
babies things will fit too. Can't fit enough luggage on your tandem ... etc
etc etc. This thing can widen your horizons without a new bike, or
compromising your old one. 

Few things in cycling are perfect, but his comes close. I've used it for
thousands of miles when I've toured with my son on a babyseat, used it to
get shopping, and hired it out - a stern test in itself. It's biggest fault is that
you can forget it's there and swipe your fellow cyclists off with it. It doesn't
like 50 kgs of potatoes in it, and has been criticised elsewhere for this, but
it will do usual shopping trips, However this isn't its "raison d'être" - it's a
cycletouring load carrier "par excellence".

GH