You definitely know there's something behind you as you're getting rolling from a dead stop, and you do feel a drag as you're heading up a long hill - but both of those things happen with panniers too. It's just the nature of hauling your own gear.
It can be hard to get through doors (like when you're checking in to a hotel) with the bike plus trailer. But hey - just unhook the trailer if you're trying to manipulate through a door or around a really sharp corner. Those types of problems never happened when I was riding.
A trailer can be a massive place to just dump your stuff, so how do you find what you need? I use Eagle Creek Pack-It cubes to organize my gear in my trailer. Regular stuff sacks would work well too. So even though everything is in a single undivided compartment, I can easily put my hands on whatever it is that I need.
Because my trip with a trailer was done on a Bike Friday folding bike, I used a 2-wheeled trailer. My bike case is a hard-sided suitcase that converts to a trailer, so I had no choice on whether to use a 1-wheeled vs. 2-wheeled trailer. There were a few times where I think a single-wheeled trailer like a Bob Yak would have been better, but overall my 2-wheeled trailer worked quite well. (The one or two days on my cross-country trip where I was wishing for a single-wheeled trailer were the days when there wasn't enough room to the right of the rumble strip to accommodate my trailer. On those days my choices were to ride on the shoulder with the trailer wheel bumping along the rumble strip, or to ride in the driving lane. If I'd been hauling a Bob it wouldn't have hit the rumble strip. I found the rumble strip pretty annoying, so I just rode in the driving lane and moved out of the way when needed.)
Again on my cross-country trip, I made the decision to use panniers in addition to the trailer. The reason I did this was to be able to isolate any food and fuel odors from my clothes, tent, and sleeping bag. I was originally only going to take a single pannier, but one of my friends convinced me that I didn't need to ride a lopsided bike for the entire summer. I used my (smaller) front panniers on the rear, and I only filled them half-way. Not too much weight on the bike, so not too much change in handling characteristics. I met someone riding the Northern Tier who solved the fuel problem in a much more clever way. He had attached four water bottle cages to his Bob trailer, and he was using them to carry 2 extra bottles of water and 2 fuel bottles.
One more consideration - now you need spare tubes and tires for the trailer too. And the trailer tires are definitely a different size than your bicycle tires! I carried 2 spare tubes for the trailer (one would probably have been sufficient) and one extra tire (which I didn't need). The trailer tubes have Schrader values, and my bicycle tubes have Presta valves (I really do prefer them...), so I had to deal with the pump issue. But that really wasn't a problem since my frame pump can easily switch between the two types of valves. Needing to carry an extra tube or tire just isn't enough to push me away from using a trailer.
Here are a few sources for trailers. And yes, there are many more trailer manufacturers out there. These are the trailers that I've used (Bike Friday) or trailers that have have been recommended by others.
- Bike Friday suitcase trailer for use with their folding bikes
- Bob Yak or Ibex single-wheeled trailers. This was the trailer I saw most often during my cycling journeys.
- Burley Nomad double-wheeled trailer.
- CycleTote double-wheeled trailer.
Me, my Bike Friday, and the trailer - in front of the Grand Tetons. What - panniers too?!
The trailer as a drying rack...
A (somewhat) close-up shot of the trailer connection to the bike - unlike most of the trailers out there, this one hooks to a braze-on on the frame with a handy-dandy air fitting. A clamp-on hitch is also available.
Good things about trailers:
- The handling of the bicycle is much better. It feels like a "normal" bike. This is the major driving point to my choice of using a trailer!
- If you develop a packing strategy, you'll still always know where everything is.
- If your trailer is your bike case you won't need to figure out how to transport your bike to or from your trip.
- My trailer made a great drying rack for the clothes I washed out at night that still weren't dry the next morning.
- The bike and trailer combination is much longer than you're used to, so it may be difficult to get into buildings. But wait - this is silly - just unhook the trailer!
- On a trip where you have to deal with transportation other than the bike, you'll have another big thing to ship. Unless you're riding a Bike Friday, in which case this turns into a good point since the trailer is the bike case!
My buddies on the tandem started out with panniers only. They'd toured that way before, but this time they had so much gear that they were having trouble controlling the bike. They purchased a trailer on the second day of their trip so they could get some of the weight off of the bike. They moved much of their heavy gear into the trailer, plus they were using 4 panniers (in their tent at the time of this photo).
