Extra Wheel Trailer
The Extra Wheel is basically one wheel hitched to the rear axle by a clever steel sprung bracket (you get both an adapted QR and 10mm axle nuts which will fit mountain and road bikes). Your kit is carried in two dry bags in cargo nets on either side of the wheel like saddle bags.
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Posted on: June 5, 2009
The pannier version [Voyager] has been available for several months…
You can also buy it without the garish yellow drybags and use whatever you fancy.I use some Ortlieb Rackpack things with mine.
Much better handling than the Monoporter that I also tried.For general touring and having the ability to shoot off road should you desire,I think it’s a neat design.
Also looks like the Classic (as reviewed) is obsolete, sounds like a good excuse to get the new one and retest it in Scotland to me
Where do you get it for £150? At cyclesense they range from £200 to £275.
i think im going to get me another of those lidl dry bags (to make a pair), and see what i can rustle up myself.
quite like the idea of trailer camping, but i reckon it could be improved on….
That price is indeed out of date. The trailer tested is also dead now. Light off road it can do, tracks and such like. It’s not designed for rocky singletrack though and I destroyed the test trailer in the rough stuff.
Would have made more sense to test the Voyager rather than the Classic [which has been used successfully on various 'expeditions' over the years] to keep things,erm,up to date.
Tempted to try the Voyager but I do like the ease of packing and access with the Ortlieb bags I currently have,versus the limitations of panniers.
This review was done for issue 38, which was aaaages ago given they’re on 49 now.
Does anyone know how this compares to the Bob Yak?
Am off in couple of weeks to ride the Grand Traversee du Jura off road route in France – taking an extra wheel and a Bob so will be good to see how they compare. So far Extra Wheel has been fab on local trails and coped well with swoopy singletrack and lumpy descents – I have to keep looking to check it’s still there!
Nicky
My girlfriend and I had two of these trailers in New Zealand for cycle touring and quite frankly they were awful. Extremely difficult to load for a start but the worst part was the build quality. The bracket holding the trailer to the bike snapped clean through on the very first day I rode it – I hadn’t even been cycling for half an hour. Honestly, unless you’re planning on carrying very light gear and not much of it I would plump for a BOB. I had the 60 litre bags and they were not filled or especially heavy. Extremely disappointed.
I’ve had a few little niggly problems with mine. Much like in the test I bust a part of the netting (easily fixed with a zip tie) and the wheel started to rubbed on the inside of the mudguard (fixed by placing a spreader inside the mudguard to push it away fro the wheel.
The trailer is easy to load once you get the hang of it. If it’s fully loaded and you want to detach form the bike you can remove the trailer from its fork and leave that part on the bike.
I’ve ridden it over fairly techy ground up and down. If you get your speed up too high >30mph it can start a speed wobble but just make sure you have a good grip on the bars and you’ll be fine.
It also tracks the rear wheel better than BOB Yak/Ibex and rear-wheel lifts are still do-able as the weight is on the trailer.
I took one of these trailers on a trip around BC which was mostly off road and it didnt stand up to it at all… The mesh fell to bits the tire rubbed constantly despite packing it every way I could think of. Finally the plastic wheel arch broke which incidentially makes the trailer totally useless as it holds the bags away from the wheel. not something you want to find out when youre days away from the nearest town!…
I pack fairly light but fitting a weeks worth of food in the bags meant that the speed wobble would send the whole thing flying off the back of the bike at anything over 25mph.
Fine for an overnight but dont expect to carry youre life in it…
Ill be sticking with my trusty (but heavy) bob next time…