Talk:Trailer bike

September 2007

is "Tag a long" or Tag along/ Tagalong another expression for this? --Stefanbcn 03:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Alternate names...

Is the list provided at the top of the article:
Trailer bike, trailer cycle or a third wheel and
(trademarked names) Trailerbike, Trail-a-bike, Half wheeler, Tagalong
a complete list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.193.10 (talk) 20:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it, but don't have a source to confirm or deny. -AndrewDressel (talk) 02:47, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Chains

"It can be possible to connect one trailer bike behind another, allowing a theoretically infinite number of riders."

Can we find a source for this? The one picture we have isn't clear enough. -AndrewDressel (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

If we're talking theory, then it certainly isn't an impossibility. The picture (while not clear, possibly showing a tandem-with-trailer-bike closely followed by a child's-bike-with-cargo trailer, at this angle with the rear child obscuring the front of his/own own segment, but probably not) shows a three-fold trailering (the front two being 'self-powering', to some degree or other) riding over a shallow-incline bridge. Just as the effort of either of the tandem-riders can be supplied or withheld to the tandem, but as long as enough power is given to match its weight and the current road conditions it can ride, the Trailer riders supply motive power to the device and (again, as with the tandem, albeit with the looser linkage) constructive or destructive balancing capability. So long as there are not too many 'idlers', or perhaps young riders unable to produce enough power to 'pull (a bit of) their weight', such that those who are fully working are unable to compensate for the partial 'drag load' that remains, the bike should be fully capable of motion. Although practice would make perfect!

The other objection you might have is the weight transferred through the linkages. Each trailer rests upon its own wheel at the rear and upon either the saddle-stem or the bike-rack of the machine in front (according to configuration). If this link is forward of the towing machine's rear wheel then it would add a proportionate amount of the supported weight upon the towing machine's front wheel or front-linkage upon the next-forward machine, but even in the worst case scenario it would be asymtotically reduced to negligable individual contribution to an element many links forward in the chain.

Or, to work it out another way, the total weight of all elements must be the same as the total distributed weight upon all wheels. Ignoring "infinte weight on infinite wheels" problems, the rear element's wheel would be 'about a half the element weight' upon the rear wheel, give or take the force distribution, its other half being supported by the penultimate element's linkage. The penultimate element distributes roughly half of its weight upon its own wheel plus say half of the prior element's transmitted weight, and allows the rest to go through the next linkage bar (though, in reality, 'inherited weight' distributes overwhelmingly to the wheel, and is thus even less transmitted). The ultrapenultimate machine, would therefore have "half of itself plus (half of prior element plus half of (half of prior element))" on its own wheel, and so-on. Which, as embelished through subsequent links in a long chain ends up levelling off in this example as one full element's weight upon one element's wheel, the most weight being suffered ("assuming a uniform spherical rider" on each element) by the front unit. (There being one more wheel than there are 'units' to sit upon them, traditionally, this sounds about right too.)

Tyres, tubes, spokes, hubs and frames are certainly capable of taking "twice the laden weight" without harm, on a well-designed cycle, or trailer-unit, without adverse effect, although it might make the tolerance to badly maintained carriageways a little less sure.

I'd be worried about getting an infinite (or even merely large) number of riders to get used to the mechanical pecularities of the machine, but there's no theoretical reason why it couldn't be indefinitely long in a linear direction, unlike higher-dimensional scaling problems like that of the square/cube-law. But not sure exactly what 'source' could be given to support this claim, without something like the above analysis (better written) cluttering up the page. 149.254.181.117 (talk) 23:43, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Ran/Ram Trailer

I knew of "Ran Trailers" (or possibly "Ram Trailers", if it's a description and not a tradename... I'm fuzzy over pronunciation and therefore spelling) back in the '60s and '70s in the UK. Web-searching for this(/these) terms(s) is a little light (not helped by the "Ran"/"Ram" bit, in which my Google-Fu fails to sufficiently disengage searches from finding mention of "running" wires or "Dodge Ram" pick-ups, and other awkwardnesses, plus contemporary online sources from this era being somewhat thin on the ground for logistical reasons) but I find it hard to believe that the Trailer Bike concept has no recorded history prior to its 1990s patenting in Canada. It probably goes even further back in time than the '60s, and is thus Older Than The Internet... Never mind The Web, young upstart piggybacker as this latter is.

Anyway. All power to the guy who got the Patent at that time, but I know it's a far older concept than this, and there must be some additional historical material that can be added to this page regarding this. I can only provide personal memories, right now, not references, but I thought, on the offchance that someone else stumbles here and sees this, your humble IPOnlyEditor's contribution, that I'd at least make my opinion known to perhaps spark the necessary additions by somebody else at a later date. 149.254.181.117 (talk) 23:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Bike Stroller

Suggest add information about bike strollers, as offered by Taga Bikes and others. BoldLuis (talk) 09:43, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Find reliable sources to support and have at it. -AndrewDressel (talk) 15:59, 10 July 2018 (UTC)