Farfarer trailer

[pmac]

I signed up with ACA for the Great Divide trip in July.  I have a 12 mm thru axle, which rules out a bob and similar axle mounted trailers, so I'm looking for a seatpost mounted trailer.  Anybody use/have any experience with a farfarer trailer?   

http://www.fftouring.com/

[whittierider]

Having the pivot right near the axle (or even below it) will definitely give the best handling.  Burley and others use a mount that clamps to the left-side seat stay and chain stay, putting the pivot near the axle but not over the axle itself.

[waynemyer]

That is a pretty interesting design. I own both seatpost mount-trailers (Burley Travoy) and own(ed) axle-mount trailers (Carry Freedom City, BOB, Burley Nomad, Bike Friday, and Wike). I have used Bikes@Work and CycleTote with the brake option.

The seatpost mount in my experience provides the best handling. By attaching at the seatpost, elastomer-coupled trailers are less likely to porpoise. In general, the spherical bearing-coupled trailers felt better (B@W and CycleTote), but the CycleTote felt better under load. The Burley Travoy, even with a load, is almost sports-car like in its nimbleness and ability to corner at speed. I believe the reason for this is that the moment arm of the trailer connects close to the CoG of the bike. Stability feels increased both at speed and while crawling. At speeds less than 3 MPH, the advantage goes to the axle-mounts.