Adding a Trailer

During the 1999 National rally at the “Three Magpies” some club members may have noticed my bike, black Soviet Knight, with an attached trailer. The question may have crossed their minds, “Why a trailer?”
It all started the previous year ,when my wife and I were on the way to the annual Cropredy music festival. As with any of our camping expeditions on the bike, we were carrying all our provisions in panniers and tank bags, with tent, sleeping bags etc strapped on to anything that doesn't move. This always makes the bike top heavy and very uncomfortable, especially during low speed manoeuvring. This had been talked about before but we managed, and we were managing again on the way to Cropredy. Then I got a puncture! I wobbled the bike to the hard shoulder and got out my instant puncture repair spray. The first problem was to get the bike onto the centre stand, so that the cause of the puncture could be found and removed.

This proved impossible with all the stuff on it, so off it all came. Anyway to cut a long story short, the spray thing worked, all the luggage went back on the bike and we returned home
When we got home my wife said that she would never go on the bike while it was loaded up like that. The bike is too small to carry the load. So the options were:

1/ Get a bigger bike: Too expensive.

2/ Attach a side car, as nature and the bikes designers had intended. (It is a Ural 650).

3/ Fit a trailer. Seemed a good idea, once you have arrived a camp-site it could be removed and the bike used for run outs and exploring the local area.

Having decided on the trailer option I set about drawing some plans to build my own. Fist step was to make sure that they are legal, a visit to the Watsonian web site set my fears at rest and the have the relevant extract of the Road Traffic act. This is useful as it lists the maximum dimensions allowed plus details about lights reflectors etc. I also checked out the cost of Watsonian trailers, should I decide not to make one, WHAT??? over £1000 ???!!! Nice though they are, a bit more than I could manage at the time, so back to the drawing board.

My numerous drawings soon confirmed that I might produce a workable trailer, but it would be rather over engineered i.e. heavy and I couldn’t decide on a 2 or one wheel design. A one wheel trailer can be made much thinner and will not be prone to “hunting”, this is the wagging like a tail that I was informed that 2 wheeled trailers can do, this could be a big problem with a bike doing the pulling. However with 2 it can be larger, carry more, and not fall over when removed from the hitch.

While surfing the net I found a company called VAS Kent, based in Dartford, they specialise in Caravans and trailers so I phoned them up to get details and a quote. They said that they could build a 2 wheeled trailer, meeting all the legal requirements, plus a swivelling hitch for £325. It was clear that these people knew how to make trailers while avoiding problems with geometry, wheel placing, suspension etc that can create instability. So I got them to make the trailer while I figured out how to fit it to the bike.

The towing point is the same as a car one, so all the bits were bought from Halfords. Fitting this was not too much of a problem, there is a good mounting point on the frame and up behind