Trailer & rear fender involved crash and explanation
This occurred to me recently on Trail Ridge road between Grand Lake and Estes Park, Colorado.
This could happen to you if you have all of the following:
- Rear full fender.
- Trailer with non inline wheels (so not a trailer with 1 wheel that leans with the bike).
- Connection between bike and trailer that can intersect the bike's rear fender when the trailer is rotated.
If you have all of the above, here's ways to prevent this failure from happening:
- My provisional solution is a nylon buckle strap (with a sufficient weight rating to support the fully loaded trailer) wrapped around my trailer's pull handle and bike's seat rails, then tightened so that the trailer arm can't reach the fender in case of a trailer roll over.
- The ideal solution is to use a bike/trailer connection that can't intersect the rear wheel, such as one that connects between the seatpost and top of trailer, or use a trailer with inline wheel(s).
And here's ways to reduce the chance of this failure happening:
- Reduce your trailer's tire pressure.
- Look farther forward to see dangers (I definitely wasn't).
- Avoid the shoulder, because debris tends to accumulate there.