My Bike

(or Sophie and the Ugly Trailer)

My baby’s a 2004 Triumph America… her name’s Sophie, and she’s green & silver. She runs an 800cc engine with a 5 speed ‘box. So far she’s had about 15% of her new value added to her, and there’s more to come. My next project’s a cargo trailer to put behind her so I can disappear for a week or more at a time, go camping, fishing, scuba diving etc without having to juggle everything on my back. The trailer I’ve found is dog ugly in a 70’s kind of way, but it’s the right price and it’ll hold enough while still being light enough to tow – well that’s the plan… we’ll find out tomorrow when I see it in the flesh… errr… fibreglass.

As an update, The Ugly Trailer is now at home and registered. Yet to take it on a serious ride but all seems well so far. When the road gets patchy and the trailer's empty it gets a little excited at high speeds, but with some weight in it, all seems well. You do feel the weight when riding, it's about the same as having an adult passenger on the back, so it's not too bad. The coupling swivels on the drawbar, so turning's not majorly affected.

Yet another update: I've taken the ugly trailer from Brisbane to Bundaberg and back (about a 1000km round trip) and to Stradbroke Island and back with a pillion passenger (only about 200km, but much rougher roads) so I know a bit more now. First up it turns out the trailer has a design flaw, well two really - the tow hitch is mounted on top of a swivel which is a really good idea for a bike, however with the swivel of the ball being about 5cm higher than the swivel built into the drawbar the trailer can get into a severe wobble under the right (wrong?) circumstances, where it starts slamming violently left & right as the drawbar swings about the ball. It's only happened once when I had the trailer loaded badly (all the weight to the rear) but it's disturbing. Secondly the hitch itself is cast iron which isn't supposed to be welded, but HAS been welded to the swivelling drawbar. The problem here is that cast iron can form microscopic cracks when welded. Both these issues will shortly be resoved - I've found a local company that makes hitchs especially for bike trailers that have a swivel built into them at the same level as the ball (resolving the first issue) and made of steel (resolving the second). The trailer could also use suspension as the axle's mounted directly to the frame and relies on the tyre sidewalls for suspension but that's much less of a problem. With intelligent packing of the trailer and securing the load it's quite stable on the road and will easilly sit at 130kph on a reasonable road. I've found a suspension system that'll work but it'll cost over $400 and I'm not sure I want to throw that much money at it.

Hang on, that's not standard is it?

It occurs to me that I should start keeping a list of what mods I've done to Sophie, as much because my memory's less than reliable as for any interest you, gentle reader, might have. So here tis, in chronological order, or as close as I can come to it. Some of these're links to the write up on the particular mod or the manufacturer... just coz I can. :)

Anyway, they reckon a picture’s worth a thousand words… so here’s a few thousand words I don't have to write.

Brand new - and about to get hit by a huge storm.

Baby's all shiny - the windscreen comes and goes depending on the trip.

Still Shiny