Trike Packing

Hennepin Canal Trail East to West and Back Again - Day Two, Part One / July 10, 2022 by Erin Wade

The Idea: Recapitulate the original purpose of the Hennepin Canal - connecting the Illinois River to the Mississippi at the Quad Cities - by riding it from its eastern end in Bureau Junction to where it empties into the Rock River at the western end at Timbrook Field in East Moline, and continue on from there to the Mississippi River and across into Iowa. And then, of course, turn around and reverse the trip back to Bureau Junction.

6/24/2022 - Geneseo Campground to canal end at Timbrook Field in East Moline IL - 13 Miles

I woke the morning of day two surprisingly well rested. It’s been years since I’ve actually been camping, so I was a little concerned that I might find that sleeping in a tent was no longer something that worked for my middle-aged body. But the combination of the shower the night before, and liberal application of ibuprofen seems to have done the trick.

I started the day with Biscuits and Gravy by Peak Refuel, paired with a large mug of French Press.

As with the Beef Pasta Marinara I’d had the night before, it was excellent. After years of picking charcoal and grit out of campfire-prepared bacon and eggs, the freeze-dried foods seem like quite a luxury.

The Campground

It just so happened that I had planned my ride over the same weekend that a vintage camper group had reserved space at the campground. I’d been made aware of this when I checked in the night before, but I’d rolled in later than I’d hoped, so my focus was on getting cleaned up and getting my campsite up for the evening. But the morning of the second day I took a look around on my way to and from the bathroom. There were an array of vintage campers - the Aerostreams and similar that you’d expect…

…to these massive trailers…

…and a couple of folks really threw themselves into the theme, adding vintage tow vehicles to the mix as well:

Old Trucks - tho I’m almost old enough myself not to think of that Ford as “old’…

On the Trail

I managed to get everything put together and get out on the trail by about 9:30 in the morning. The entrance to the trail is literally just off the main drive into the campground, which made it very convenient. The trike was a bit lighter for this segment - I left the tent, sleeping bag, and inflatable pad behind at the campsite - and I could feel the difference. This had been part of the plan, since day two was the longest distance of the three. All of which meant things were moving a little faster as I rolled out onto the asphalt of the trail outside the campground.

I knew that I was moving towards a more populated area of the canal trail. It’s not urban, per se - I don’t think you can use that term to apply to any part of the trail. But as you move westward from Geneseo you see houses, side by side, on the opposite side of the canal, and you get less of a sense of isolation.

Which is why I was a little surprised when, a half-hour after leaving the campground, I came across this:

You could call it gravel, I suppose - there are stones on the path - but it would be a generous description. But while it was an unexpected surface - and maybe, given the rest of the Canal Trail, it shouldn't have been that surprising - it was a fair trade-off for the view:

The purple coneflowers give the impression that there has been an active effort to put in native prairie plants in this area. It was definitely making the pollinators happy, but for some reason I wasn’t able to convince any of them to stay still long enough to pose for a portrait.

A few miles after the prairie plot, however, the “gravel” gives way to relatively well maintained asphalt. And, in fact, from that point westward, solid surfaces are the rule - either asphalt or concrete, depending upon where you are at.

As this starts, the trail also starts to arc in a northwesterly direction, bringing you up towards, and eventually across the Green River:

This is actually the second of two meeting points between the Hennepin Canal and the Green River. The first is a little more than 28 miles to the East, where the Hennepin’s feeder canal is carried over the Green River via a massive cement aqueduct. I was at that spot a few years ago - it’s something to see, with one body of water essentially floating overtop another. It is a decidedly unnatural thing. Unfortunately, the Aqueduct at this point is lost to time, replaced by a piping system that runs under the river to maintain the flow of the canal.

As far as being unnatural goes, this is a feature that the Canal and the Green River have in common. The Green River is largely a made made waterway itself, coming to life around the turning of the 19th century as part of a project to drain the former Inlet Swamp almost sixty miles to the east of this point. This project was undertaken to gain additional usable farmland, and, astonishingly enough, even back in the late 1800’s there was debate over whether the swamp should be maintained as a recreational wetland instead. I’m a little reluctant to admit that I have an ancestor - one Benjamin Franklin (yes) Johnson - who was, at one time, the commissioner of the Inlet Swamp Drainage District.

…So I guess it’s easy enough to determine where the family fell in the recreational wetland vs farmland debate.

But all that being the case, there are still wetland areas in the region, as is ably demonstrated a short distance further down the trail:

And in this area, as well as in others along the way, the canal has also taken a turn towards something more along the lines of a wetland:

But not long after this point things get - and remain - decidedly more civilized:

As I worked my way towards the end of the trail I was definitely in “town”, with settlement all around me. And not far from the end I encountered this:

It says that this is the finish line, but I was pretty sure that didn’t apply to me. I had places to be at the time, but I looked it up later on. The Hennepin Hundred is “Illinois’ only point-to-point, all-trail ultramarathon”.

I didn’t know this was even a thing, but that’s not surprising. I love cycling, but I’d sooner have my eyes gouged out with hot pokers than go for a jog. The event doesn’t occur until October, which is fortunate for me - if I’d selected an autumn date for this ride I might have ended up pedaling along with a pack of runners.

It was shortly after that sign that I came across the only underpass on the trip that I wasn’t willing to brave:

All of them have their own idiosyncrasies - uneven floors, sometimes a bit muddy at the start and end, a puddle right in the middle where it’s too dark to see - but this looked a little more… damp than I wanted to contend with. I rode up over the top.

It was a short distance from that point to the end of the canal trail. The trail itself signals that you have no choice but to turn around:

There is one final lock at the end of the canal - Lock 29 (you just know that somewhere in the mix there had to be that one guy who was just looking for a way to add one more lock to the system to get a round number at the end…):

And from here, the canal empties into the Rock River:

At this point I wanted to be sure I took my lesson from Day One. I stopped, sat down on a bench, ate an apple, relaxed, and enjoyed the location, which included the rushing water from one last man-made waterfall:

And I contemplated moving across to the other side of the lock - which the map indicates is the trailhead. But the bridge across the canal had other ideas…

I can sort of imagine the discussion that led up to the presence of this bridge:

Bob: “Uh, Bill, the plan says that we need a bridge across Lock 29.”

Bill: “We’ve got about 50 feet of metal left, and maybe five bucks worth of scrap lumber. Will that do?”

Bob: “Its good enough for government work!”

I would hear my Dad say that last phrase often when I was a kid, usually at the point where he had decided he’d worked long enough on something that might not be a finished as it could be. It was only later in life - when I see a huge sign on the highway that says “bump”, or a bridge like this, that I fully appreciated what he meant.

The completist in me briefly considered carrying the trike across, but the realist immediately imagined dropping it into the canal and told the completist to shut his pie hole.

From this point the Rock River follows a somewhat winding course for another 13 miles before it empties into the Mississippi. When I had started thinking through this ride, my initial idea was to follow the Rock from that point, fully recapitulating the course from the Illinois to the Mississippi. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to make that work that looked at all attractive from a riding perspective. While there are streets that get you there, large portions of the roadways looked to be major highways or at least heavily traveled, and in commercial areas. So I laid out a different path to get to the mighty Mississippi.

Once I’d had my fill of fruit, and I was rested and relaxed, I headed out to reach - and cross - the Mississippi.

Trike Packing - Storage Options / May 1, 2022 by Erin Wade

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time testing out how well the rack on my Catrike Expedition would manage the weight and mass of the materials that I would be taking on my Hennepin Canal Trip by filling my existing panniers and stacking the additional items up in backpacks on the top of the rack. Then I went out for a ride.

Aside from a bit of swaying back and forth, the trike handled the cargo just fine. This meant that I wouldn't need to purchase a new trailer or bear the burden of my existing, perfectly functional but somewhat less than svelte, DIY flatbed trailer.

That post, however, got several comments from folks suggesting that I look at a different type of cargo bag specifically designed for recumbents. Essentially, there are bags that take advantage of the laid back position of the trike seat and use that as the support frame, laying straps saddlebag-style across the back of the seat and hanging off of each side.

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The benefit to these over my existing approach is that they move the weight both down, and more to the center of the trike. While what I had set up was working, there was visible movement in the backpack stack as I was riding. I don’t think this was at risk of a catastrophic failure, but it would suggest that I might have to periodically stop to straighten things up and re-secure them on a longer ride. In addition, with my approach pretty much everything is weighing down on the rear wheel, while these bags spread more of it across all three wheels.

In addition, these look to be relatively easy to put on and take off, which will make them easy to use any time I need to carry more stuff, but allow me to keep the weight down when I don’t. I can see them replacing the use of my trailer for grocery trips and similar types of activities. So they have real utility beyond just trike packing.

There are a couple of different versions of these that looked like they might work for my purpose. One is the Smokey Mtn Saddlebag Max (linked here at Utah Trikes, which also has a video about them), and the other is the Radical Design Banana Racer. There are smaller versions of these as well, but those wouldn't have offered the space I would have needed.

The Radical Design bags are quite a bit larger than the Smokey Mtn bags, so I fairly quickly moved over to looking at those.

The company is based in The Netherlands, but I found that they were available through The Hostel Shoppe. I’ve ordered things from them before - most recently my Windwrap Fairing - so that seemed like a good option. They also have a video that shows the bags in detail (the Banana Racer comes in at about 1:35).

The video really was the thing that finally sold me on these bags. It clearly shows them as being capable of holding a large quantity of stuff, which is what I am looking for. They also have a bottle carrier at the top of each bag. I found that kind of hard to resolve in the pictures on the company website (which is where the pic above comes from), but it was very clear in the video. I have a very nice T-Cycle Adjustomatic Bottle Mount on my trike, but those mesh pockets would be very handy for keeping other things at hand.

The only challenge for me was the color options. At the time that I looked at the site, The Hostel Shoppe only had a couple of colors available - I believe red and blue - with others being out of stock. And none of the out-of-stock colors included the all-important orange option. However, I could see on the company website that orange was offered, so I emailed The Hostel Shoppe to see if they would be able, and willing, to order one for me in the appropriate color.

And indeed they were. They estimated that the bags will come in about the middle of this month (May 2022) which is plenty ahead of my planned trip in June, so that’s all looking pretty good. Now I’m just keeping fingers crossed (metaphorically of course - otherwise I couldn’t type) that shipping and supply chain issues don’t get in the way.

Trike Packing - Putting it on the Rack / April 10, 2022 by Erin Wade

Last week I spent some time obsessively weighing things with my new scale, and came to the conclusion that, proud of it as I was, at nearly 29 lbs my DIY flatbed trailer was not going to be a good option for ride carrying all my gear on a multi-day ride.

This leaves me with a couple of options - either I buy a lightweight cargo trailer for the ride, or I try to get everything on the rear cargo rack.

Getting everything on the rear rack is almost certainly the less expensive option, and my Catrike Expedition is built to be able to do this very sort of thing (it’s right there in the name, after all). Other people do trike packing this way - Sylvia Halpern and her trike Myrtle the Turtle and Matt Galat at Jayoe being some more public examples of this. I’ve watched Sylvia’s videos, and one of the things that is clear is that she has much bigger panniers than I do.

The bags currently on my trike are Axiom Seymour Oceanweave P25’s. I ordered these when I ordered my Expedition back in 2019, and they have served me well for carrying my everyday stuff - tools, tubes, patch kits, extra water bottles, clothes (particularly in winter) and sundries. They’ve even been up to the task for small volume grocery runs. I liked them as an option when I ordered them because they are a single unit - the two bags are connected by a somewhat rigid fabric section that connects to the top of the rack. The center, connecting section has a handle on it, and that all seemed like it would be pretty handy as a way to easily allow you to pick up the bags and carry them around if needs be. And it is, tho it’s a feature I’ve only rarely used.

The “25” in the name is the number of liters they can carry between the two bags. In actual capacity that’s on the relatively small side. It’s certainly adequate to my everyday needs, and has been more than capable for longer single day rides, but I’ll need more space than they can offer by themselves. One option, obviously, would be to get larger panniers. The challenge with this is that any decent set of bags that are sufficiently larger than my current option starts to get somewhat pricey. Combine, for example, a set of 40L Ortlieb Panniers with a Rack-Pack bag and your price starts to come very close to the cost of a Burley Trailer. That’s not necessarily a problem if it meets your needs, but it does make one want to investigate A) how well the trike does at carrying things in general; and 2) whether stuff you already have can meet the task.

So this past weekend I set about searching for answers those two questions. I am a backpack person - I use a backpack for my professional work (as opposed to a briefcase, for example), and have routinely used them for carrying sports gear, travel, etc - if you can get everything you need for a trip into a backpack it’s a lot easier to navigate thru the airport. What this means, ultimately, is that I have a backpack or two that I could apply to this purpose.

The first thing I tried to sort out was what the best way would be to array things on the back of the trike. I played with the idea of setting one backpack upright and the other flat:

But this really seemed to take up too much horizontal space. The upright bag was not on the rack - it was sitting between the seat frame and the rack on the top of the fender. And the rear bag was hanging off of the back. I briefly thought about fashioning an extension for the rack in each direction - I have some aluminum tubing left over from the framing of the child trailer that I built my DIY trailer from. I played with that idea long enough to do an Amazon search for tubing benders and such, but then decided maybe I should just try stacking them and lashing them down with bungees.

And that worked:

(I replaced the orange backpack in the first picture - which is my work backpack that I grabbed initially because it was handy for thinking things thru - with a red Lands End one that I had in the closet). Both backpacks are bungeed down - e.g. I put the bottom one on the rack, bungeed it down, and then put the red one on top of it and strapped it down. The bottom one has my sleeping bag and sleeping pad in it, as well as the two battery packs I will take along; and the top one has the clothing I would take along on the trip. I have a tent for the trip as well, but I’d set it up inside to allow it to air out, so I put an electronics bag (cords, adapters, etc) that weighs about the same as the tent does into the top bag to simulate it’s weight. I weighed the two backpacks (of course), and together they came out to 16.9 lbs. I oriented the top backpack backwards so that the red material would face oncoming traffic for visibility. And I did have to move one of my rear flashers from the neckrest handle to the backpacks so it could be seen.

In the panniers I always have extra tubes, a patch kit, and tools. I put a couple of extra bottles of water, which I would plan to carry for the ride as well. They also still have my winter support gear - extra layers of clothing, some chemical warmers and such - in them. I left that in them to simulate the remaining items that I do not have yet - e.g. a small cook stove, food, and a first aid kit. I suspect the winter gear is a little lighter than those items will be, but not a lot. But with all of this the trike was definitely heavier. I often pick it up by the rear rack to wheel it out of the garage and turn it around, and that was noticeably harder than it usually is.

With all that in place I headed out for a test ride.

I wanted a route that was a little further distance - I wanted to have a sufficient length of time to get a real feel for the extra weight and how the stacked backpacks would behave. I picked a 21.5 mile route with a few hills on it. It’s also one of the only routes I have that also has a short section of gravel on it (which I usually avoid like the plague). The gravel section is poorly maintained:

Which is to say that its mostly a dirt road with a bit of gravel residue on it - the sort of road sometimes referred to as “hero gravel”. Much of the Hennepin Canal trail is more or less this sort of surface. I think it’s described as “crushed stone”, but if that’s true, that was one heck of a crusher… At any rate, it was an opportunity to ride it on a bit of surface similar to what I’d be encountering on the trip.

All in all, it went pretty well. The extra weight was detectable, but not terribly so. I could see the backpacks in my mirrors, and they did noticeably sway back and forth in synchrony with my pedaling motion. However, they stayed in place very well - there was no real shifting during the ride, and they looked to be in essentially the same place at the end as they were in the beginning. As long as the lighter weight items - like clothing - are at the top I think the arrangement will be fine for a longer trip.

I’ve ridden this route once before, and my time on the route this time was slower, but only by slightly over two minutes. Speed for it was 13.11 mph, down from 13.4 on the prior ride. This may have been abetted somewhat by a lower wind speed - 0 wind for this day, compared to a 10 mph on the prior ride - and the fact that I have my Windwrap fairing on the trike (which I’m anticipating leaving on for the Hennepin ride as well).

Overall this suggests that I should be able to get everything on the back of the trike, and that the additional weight shouldn't slow me down too much. This feels like proof of concept for packing on the trike itself as opposed to buying a new trailer.

The next thing to consider is whether I just go with the bags I have for this trip, or whether I shell out for something purpose-built, like the aforementioned Ortlieb setup. I go back and forth on that. New bags are pricey, but there’s a get-what-you-pay-for factor with them - they are waterproof and designed to work together. I’d need to pack stuff in garbage bags and/or figure out how to set up a small tarp over the backpacks to hedge against rain otherwise. I think if I was certain that I’m going to enjoy the camping component it would be a no-brainer to go ahead and get them, because I’d want to do more of it going forward. But if 50-ish me finds that he doesn’t enjoy sleeping on the ground the way that my 20 and 30 year old self did, I’ll have laid out the cash for something I won’t really use again.

So - continued thinking required.

Trike Packing - Weighing My Options / April 3, 2022 by Erin Wade

As I mentioned last week, I’ve begun thinking my way thru the idea of a trike packing trip down the Hennepin Canal Trail.

What I’m looking at would likely be considered pretty modest by the standards of people who do this regularly - three days of riding punctuated by a couple of nights of camping. But for me it’s very new, and what I’m discovering, not for the first time, is that the idea of the trip, and the planning for it, makes it all fun even before I put tires to trail.

One part of that planning is figuring out how to carry everything along with me. I’ve been debating whether to try to get everything on to the panniers and rear rack of my Catrike Expedition, or to put it in a trailer to pull behind me.

I’m going to continue to explore the idea of using the panniers and rack, but given that I’ll be traveling down a pretty rustic trail with pretty limited resources, I’m starting to mentally lean towards using a trailer. This gives me a couple of options. I can use my existing, hand built flatbed trailer, or I can look at purchasing something new - such as a Burley Nomad - for the trip.

To that latter point, I’ve started to think about weight. I’m pleased with how my DIY trailer turned out, and it has turned out to useful for hauling a variety of things back and forth from town, it is not a dainty item.

Last week I estimated that it was probably in the 20-25lb weight range. It turns out that was a little optimistic:

It moved around a bit, but it seems like it centered at 28.28 lbs.

I first weighed it by asking my Dad if he had a scale we could use for the purpose. It turned out he did - he had a fishing scale that goes up to 50lbs. But, given that it was a fishing scale, it was designed to be held in one hand while taking the weight. We managed to make it work (thanks Pop!), and got a weight - 26lbs, 14oz - similar to the weight on my own scale above. But once I’d seen the results I decided it was time to get my own scale, because it was clear I was going to want to weigh more stuff, and weigh it with more precision.

There are a couple of factors at play here. First, because my home built trailer is a flatbed, I will probably need to put some sort of container on it to hold and make weatherproof anything I’m carrying. That will compound with the original 28.28 lbs of the trailer itself.

For example, I have a couple of existing Rubbermaid Action Packer containers that I purchased several years ago to store camping gear. I bought them at the time because they are rugged and lightweight. I pulled them down, and two of them fit quite nicely atop the flatbed.

But while they seem lightweight when they are something you are hauling in and out of your outdoorsy motor vehicle, the scale tells a different story for this application:

Action Packer - yeah, it’s been in the rafter of the garage for a long time…

The container comes in at 5.3 lbs. This means that, where I to set myself up with two of them on the home built trailer I’d be pulling almost 39 lbs (38.88) before adding any actual cargo to it.

Obviously there are other possibilities. I could stack items on the flatbed directly and cover them with a tarp and strap them down instead of putting containers on it. This would lose the 10.6 lbs worth of container weight, but would leave things potentially more exposed to the elements. And it would still leave me pulling a 28+lb trailer.

An other factor is that the home-built trailer is… bouncy. The hitch hookup uses a flexible nylon connector, and it has a fair amount of give to it. When I am riding with the trailer on the road I can see the trike wobbling gently from side to side. This undoubtedly is distributing energy in a way that isn’t just directed at forward motion. It hasn’t been enough to bother me for the short utility rides that I’ve been using the flatbed for but I suspect it would be an energy drain on a longer trip. I’ve been aware of this since I built the trailer, and it could conceivably be addressed by using a different type of hitch connector. Still given the weight issue, I doubt that fix would change things enough make the flatbed an attractive option for this trip.

Long story short, then, I think my home built flatbed is out of the picture for the ride along the Hennepin Canal. Next question is whether I can get everything I need on the rack, or whether I’m ordering a fancy new trailer…

Time for Spring Planning / March 27, 2022 by Erin Wade

We had a bout of faux spring here in Northern Illinois last week - multiple days in a row with temperatures in the 60’s and low 70’s (F). Predictably, that has turned out to be just a tease (projected high today of 36°), but it was enough to allow for some longer rides, which gets me thinking about what sort of riding I want to do as the weather warms up in earnest.

Something that has been on my list for a long time is to do some type of trike packing - e.g. a trip covering some distance, with overnight camping stops along the way. And despite the fact that the onset of spring turned out to be a lie, it’s gotten my wheels - my mental wheels, anyway - turning on what goes into such a trip.

Where to Go

My first area of consideration was where I would want to go. I do most of my riding out of my own driveway, on the backroads of northern Illinois. But while this is a pretty friendly area for the riding itself - generations of sharing the road with slow moving agricultural equipment makes for people who are pretty accommodating on the tarmac - it’s not a region that offers much by way of camping opportunities off the side of the road. The land here is generally privately owned, and engaged in active farming use.

This led me pretty quickly to trails, which then leads me to the Hennepin Canal Trail.

It’s a place I’m already somewhat familiar with (at least along the eastern end). It’s a state park, and it has designated camping sites along the route. Most of these are pretty rustic, but there is one site along the way, outside the town of Geneseo, that has showers and similar facilities. And while the teenage boy inside me loves the idea of the adventure of rough camping, the middle-aged dude typing this post knows that having a place to shower and plug in his stuff is going to make things a lot nicer, especially for a first time out.

Exploring more of the canal trail in general has also been on my list, so this gives me an opportunity to kill two goals with one ride (I may have mixed - or possibly butchered - that metaphor a bit…). This has, of course, led me to spending time poring over the trail map on Google Maps and I think - if I plan it right - I could actually make this a ride from the trailhead in Bureau Junction to the end of the trail, and include a side trip up to cross over the Mississippi into Iowa.

The total distance from start to finish in Iowa - one way - is about 80 miles. My longest single ride distance to date was just over 75 miles, which was at the hairy limit of my conditioning, even after several weeks of training. Given that, I’m looking at probably two nights of camping, breaking the 160 miles across three days of riding. This makes for three days at just over 50 miles (53.33333…). Thanks to The Hilly Hundred, I know that this should be doable for me, especially since the canal trail lacks the hilly part. And it should mean that I can ride with an eye towards enjoying the trip, with plenty of time to stop, take pictures, and generally enjoy the nature as opposed to trying to push to reach a given goal or destination.

Equipment

The other question is what to take along. My Catrike Expedition is definitely up to the task - it’s right there in the name, after all. And this sort of riding is why I chose the Expedition specifically. I’ll want to make sure everything is in good working order, of course, but that is something that should be done on a fairly routine basis anyway.

I’ll need equipment to support the trip as well. Among the things I’ll need to take along will be:

Tent
Sleeping bag & mat
Change(s) of clothing
Towel
Food & water
Tools and tubes
Battery packs for the phone and lights

And this, of course, is just my initial list. I’m absolutely sure there are things I’m not thinking of yet. Some of these things I already have, of course. Others I do not - I don’t have a one-person tent yet, for example (but I’ve wanted one for a long time, and here’s my reason to get it).

The next question that pops up in my head is how to carry all of this. Essentially there are two options - I can try to get it all into my panniers and/or on the rear rack, or I can pull a trailer behind me.

Part of me likes the simplicity of just using the bags and rack on the trike. I know that the trike can carry a fair amount of weight on the back - I’ve managed, for example, to haul a full grill-size LP tank on the top of the rack with my regular backup gear still in the bags. And I am not currently using most of the seat pockets - the zippered containers on the back of the Catrike seat - because I have always had plenty of space in my bags. If I plan for efficiency, I might be able to just haul it all as a self-contained unit.

The alternative option is to use a trailer. I do have one - I built a flatbed trailer out of the frame from a very run-down kid-carrier and a selection of palettes I had at the Homestead. It works well, and can carry a fair amount of weight. I’ve carried up to 80lbs on it - that being softener salt from the hardware store. But while I’m somewhat proud of my DIY trailer and it’s capabilities, it is… shall we say, it isn’t a dainty item. I’m not sure exactly what it weighs, but I’d guess it’s in the neighborhood of 20-25lbs unloaded, and I’d need to add a container (more weight) to it to use it. I’m sure to feel that on an extended ride.

Which then makes me think about buying something like a Burley Nomad. These are lovely little trailers, clearly well designed and specifically built for the sort of thing I’m trying to plan. And, at 17lbs, almost certainly lighter than my DIY trailer. The big “but” in the room, tho, is that you definitely pay for that special design and lighter weight. And to be clear, I think they are worth what they are asking. But I’m not sure I want to make that kind of investment for my first time out - I might find, despite the inner teenager, that the middle-aged dude doesn’t like camping out any more.

So - my plan for now is going to be to optimize my use of the storage space on the trike and see whether I can comfortably haul what I need that way, and take a few longer practice runs like that. If that works, great! If not, then I’ll start to work in the trailer and see how much it impedes my progress.