Trailers versus panniers
From the first day that Chelsea and I decided to go on tour we have thought about the age-old question of panniers versus trailers. Both approaches have their (sometimes) fanatic fans.
While we saw the upsides and downsides of both, we finally decided that trailers were the way to go for us. We liked the ease of loading the trailers, we liked the ease of access to our gear, we liked the fact that we could simply and easily unhitch the trailers when we wanted to use our bikes without the gear.
But the most compelling for us was the ease of maneuvering the bikes with a fully loaded trailer. The bottom line was that we felt safer with the trailers than we felt hauling a fully loaded bike, especially since we’d not done unsupported touring yet.
Then of course came the decision of single-wheel trailers vs. two-wheel trailers. That was easy, as we had no need for single track, and we saw first-hand on our 2006 cross-country trip how annoying it was to have the single-track trailers lie down sideways when the bike was laid down. Getting at gear was far more difficult than with the upright two-wheeled trailers, and we’d read that stability while riding, especially at speeds downhill, wasn’t the greatest.
Personal experience always helps too. Back in 1986 we hauled twenty-six-month-old Chelsea in a Burley trailer from the Oregon border to San Francisco, and we knew firsthand how easy they were to hitch and unhitch, how stable they were while riding (even when your “cargo” is wiggling and squirming and talking), and how easy it was to take a break and not worry about the “cargo” tipping out sideways.
We were right on all counts. After touring with our Burley trailers from 2007 to 2009, and using them as cargo trailers around here in South Florida, we still feel the same way. They are easy to use, they are stable, they are lightweight, they are reliable.
A big unexpected side benefit was the realization that cars pulled wider for us on the road. We were very visible with our tall flags waving in the wind and our brightly colored trailers in our two-person caravan. We were told several times that drivers thought we were hauling babies. And as we’ve said elsewhere, drivers may not like cyclists, but no one wants to kill an innocent child.
Switching to panniers
Despite all of the huge benefits, there were some downsides for us. One factor was that the Burley trailers were not waterproof. We used plastic bags for awhile, but they abraded too easily. We gradually worked towards buying waterproof dry bags, but we finally realized we needed to either bite the bullet and go all dry-bag, or get a new system.
Another downside was that it was too easy to carry too much gear. (That’s a double-edged sword, though. How many times did we love having the extra space to tuck in food and water to lug to the campground a few miles up the road!)
Then, when we’d have to take the trailer down for whatever reasons, what on earth did we do with the seemingly hundreds of little items, even using Pack-It cubes? We occasionally hitch-bike for various reasons, and there’s always the challenge of what to do with the trailers themselves and with the gear inside.
One serious low point for us was arriving home. We’d caught a Craigslist rideshare from Port Lavaca Texas to Orlando Florida where we were to meet another rideshare. The first part of the route was easy – the driver had a pickup truck so we simply lifted the fully loaded trailers up on the pickup bed.
We weren’t so lucky the second part of the route. Our driver had an old Mercedes sedan with no roof rack, a nearly full trunk, and a bike rack. I will never forget standing there in 100+ degree heat, with our gear laid out all over two parking spaces in the Orlando turnpike parking lot in the blazing Florida August sun.
To our horror, we discovered cockroaches of varying sizes fleeing our gear – we’d obviously acquired them at our last stay in Texas. We couldn’t fit all our things in the car easily; we had to take down the trailers quickly; nothing about it was easy.
We made it through the episode, though we weren’t happy at all, and it was a big “aha” experience for us.
That started our discussion of whether we wanted to switch to panniers.