Burley Coho XC Trailer

Getting older represents a shift towards delusion. We live our lives like we’re 10 years younger. We spend money on our aspirations. We pretend we are what we wanted to be, not what we actually are.

This trailer represents my delusion. I had intentions. I had plans. They met the reality that is my life.

Background

This started with a pedal down the Danube. I’ve probably talked about this already. It was magical. It was dumb. We flew into Munich, hopped on a train, grabbed some rental bikes and started pedaling. We had our bloody suitcases in a trailer! I was 4 weeks off a torn calf muscle! The bikes were horrendous! We had a small dog in a backpack along for the ride! It was a strange source for inspiration.

The trailer itself was awful. It was no worse than the bike it was attached to, but it creaked with every pedal stroke and tended to ride along with a subtle inch worming effect. Hills were a ridiculous walking pace affair. Luckily it was flat! Flat as a pancake! 227m of climbing over 57km! And that was with a detour up a hill so that we could drink cider in an orchard.

I came back from that trip and all I could think was “why don’t I have a trailer for my bike? I should get a trailer for my bike!” I got a trailer for my bike.

The Reality

First, this trailer is awesome! I like this trailer. It has some issues, sure, but holy cow! If I had had this thing on our European trip, I’d probably still be there. I mean…our suitcases wouldn’t have fit in it. But it doesn’t creak. It doesn’t inchworm. It doesn’t herniate discs if you try to lift it. It’s 1000% better than the piece of crap we rented.

The big but here though, is that I don’t live in Europe. I don’t live in a magical land of flat bike paths and curb side cider dispensaries and bicycle specific ferries. I do live in a land of horrendously managed car ferries and hilly islands and amazing bikepacking slogs. I imagined this trailer opening up a world of that for me. Of course, I’m old and I’m delusional and this review dragged on and I needed photos and I put it off and all that. So…you know what…here is some reality. I haven’t done all of the things that I wanted to with this trailer. I hope it will still come to pass. I have a few thoughts for this fall. That’s not saying I didn’t use this thing! I hauled stuff around town. I took it crab fishing. I pedaled it up hills and across islands and all of that. But what I didn’t do was plan an amazing multi-day single track slaying bikepacking uber adventure where I used this trailer to haul all my stuff to a basecamp that was awesome. It just didn’t happen. And…I mean…you’ll see, but maybe that’s for the best?

What it is

If you’re really serious about a trailer and you’re really serious about bikepacking away from paved roads, head over to Bikepacking.com and read this article about trailers. These people are crazy and know more about this subject than I do. Okay. You still here?

From that article, you would learn that there are a few different styles of bike trailer. You’ve got your ankle biters, which likely have 2 wheels and latch on to your chainstay. You’ve got your seatpost grabbers, which likely have a single wheel and grab on to your seatpost. And you’ve got your axle snaggers (like this one here), which hold on to your axle. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but if you’re considering not carrying a child along on pavement, you probably want a single wheel seatpost grabber or axle snagger.

The Burley Coho XC (hey hey! That’s this!) is a pretty great little axle snagger with a lot of neat features:

• Connection system – The trailer attaches to two balls, one on either side of your axle. Burley has a number of different axles that thread in to replace your stock system (there are 10 different 12mm through axle options, so choose carefully). There’s one notable missing exception, but if you aren’t rocking a UDH, chances are very good that you will find an axle that works for your bike. Once you’ve got the axle mounted, the trailer goes off and on incredibly easily, with two quick release latches, one on either side, hugging the balls you mounted to your axle. Slick and effective.
• Suspension – The Burley has a highly tunable, anti-squat optimized, high pivot suspension system designed by an ex engineer from the Ducati MotoGP team. No…just kidding. It has a super basic single pivot system rotating on a retaining pin that may have been sourced from a hardware store. But it’s a trailer! What do you want! This is all you really need to smooth things out for your cargo. Plus…coil shock! Plussssh.
• Construction – It’s burly. It’s light. The frame is 6061 Aluminum and the rest is a mixture of tough fabrics and fancy, durable plastics. Throw whatever you want in there, pay some attention to the weight ratings, and you should be okay. It has a 70L cargo capacity and maxes out at 70 pounds of stuff
• Kickstand – I never thought I’d be pumping up a kickstand, but here we are! The kickstand is great! Kick it down and it nicely supports the trailer and bike, allowing you to walk away and take photos.
• Accessories – It’s almost a base system that Burley sells you and you can fill it out with accessories. Planning a tonne of off road? You should probably splurge for the optional knobby tire equipped wide rim wheel. Need more hauling capacity? Throw some panniers on the side! Okay…maybe that’s not as extensive as I had thought…but the dry bag is cool too!
• Replacement parts – Burley has a huge number of replacement parts! I always like it when you could conceivably build the actual thing just by buying all of the offered replacement parts. The only thing missing seems to be the central frame.

Using it

The trailer isn’t quite an ignore-the-instructions type of affair. Depending on which axle you have, you’ll probably want to read through exactly how to install it, and get all of the spacers in the right spot. As well, it’s not quite intuitive but you’ll really want to clamp down on the main pivot between the trailer and the yoke that attaches to your axle. Other than that though, it all goes together (and comes apart) quite easily, and it breaks down into a pretty small package when not in use. All of the parts that come off fit into the trailer when not in use. Slick.

The attachment system needs a bit more discussion here. Installing the axles is pretty easy, once you have the spacing all sorted out. I even considered bringing along the stock axle on my imaginary bikepacking trip so that when I was off carving amazing singletrack, the axle balls weren’t hanging off the back of my bike. They do stick out a fair bit.

There’s also some adjustment required to get the kickstand to the right height. But once that’s done, you just kind of slap the yoke onto your axle balls and ride away. Removal is just as easy, with one nice little central handle that pulls a couple of cables to release the trailer. Super easy.

The cargo area is nice and square, and it’s easy enough to figure out a way to fit things in. The rear wheel fend also doubles as a lash point or support for longer items, so you can really fill this thing up with lots of stuff. The (not sure if included or optional?) cargo net becomes a godsend, as you can stuff things in without too much worry that they’re going to fly away. I think the hook system on the cargo net could use a bit more thought, but it does allow for a lot of flexibility.

But what’s it like to ride with Dave? I’m becoming suspicious that you aren’t talking about that

Well. The problem with buying a trailer that adds a lot of hauling capacity to your bicycle is that you tend to fill it up with stuff. I’m not sure how familiar you are with physics, but adding weight to a bicycle makes it harder to ride. So, you’ll approach that 70 pound load capacity and you’ll pedal along on a nice flat stretch of ground thinking that things aren’t too bad, and then you’ll hit a hill and wonder why you’ve subjected yourself to this. That’s kind of your fault, though. The trailer is doing exactly what is expected of it.

Honestly, it’s remarkable how easy it is to ride flat terrain with this attached to your bicycle. Do weird things and you’ll feel it, yes. But if you’re just chugging along it’s mostly just the weight that you notice. Going down a hill is less straight forward

The first time I rode my bike with this trailer down a hill that wasn’t paved…holy cow. I mean… 70 pounds? Ya… I probably had fewer than 70 pounds in there. I had a cooler and a bucket and a crab trap and a camera bag and a few other things. And it was Bowen Freaking Island, where hills go to copulate. So we were riding down a loose gravel trail. It was steep! But it was pretty basic. And I tried to stop and I just kept on going! Turns out if you put a whole bunch of weight right on your rear axle, how you brake needs to change.

I should also point out that adding 70 pounds of weight and a giant freaking lever to the axle of your DW-linked bike might not be something that the designer included in your calculations. I mean, Dave Weagle is involved so he can probably talk to you about it for a long period of time, but this might even be beyond his realm of knowledge. There were a few times where I looked behind me, watching the rear end of the Ibis Ripmo AF flex around in all kinds of weird ways and thought “hmmmmm….” And don't even start on what this thing might be doing to your suspension performance.

Things were better on paved hills, but still got a bit weird. First, you move really fast. Next, if you’re travelling at 60 km/hour and do something weird, your bike reacts differently and that can be a challenge. So, you know, take it easy. Start slow. Figure it out. Make sure your brakes are working and figure out your balance points.

So, who is this for, then? If not us delusional mountain bikers?

Hey. I didn’t say it wasn’t for the delusional mountain biker! You just need to put some thought into it before you get too out there. Some things to think about:

• What sort of terrain are you going to ride this on? If you are going to be riding a lot of singletrack, a seatpost grabber is probably going to work better for you. I think the weight distribution is going to be better under braking, but that’s kind of total speculation. If you are thinking more kind of paved or gravel bike kind of stuff, hey! This thing could be perfect!
• What sort of bike are you going to attach it to? I think certain full suspension designs are going to work better. Don’t ask me which ones. Dual link bikes are probably the worst application. You’re adding a bunch of torque, multiplying it through your swingarm and then expecting things to be rosy? I dunno man. Sounds like a poor choice. Hardtails are going to work great!
• Does your bike have a UDH? I think the engineers at Burley need to tackle this one pronto, because I’m not sure if they’ve notice, but there are a lot of UDH bikes out there.
• Do you have enough money? You'll need CAD$650 or US$490 and wish to spend that on a trailer for your bicycle

Honestly, I’m pumped to have experienced this thing! It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty cool to be able to throw a bunch of stuff onto the back of your bicycle and haul it around. It’s probably a more a gravel-biking-weekend-of-camping tool than a remote-mountain-biking-bikepacking tool…but that’s not to say it won’t work on singletrack. I mean, they did call it the Coho XC and not the Coho Enduro or Coho Downcountry, so just bear that in mind as you select your trails.

This is a piece of equipment that might not transform your mountain biking, but it might transform your mountain bike. Being able to haul a whole bunch of stuff on a platform that you can take off the beaten path is a dramatically cool thing. As with many things, that might not wind up being as simple as it sounds. Not many things exist without compromise, but if you’re looking to haul a whole bunch of stuff using your bicycle and you’re not sure of what lies ahead, this could be the answer. And hey, you might finally have a use for that 26" hardtail that you have stuffed back in the corner! I actually can't believe it took me this long to think of that.

Burley is now shipping direct to Canada. Head on over to check that out at the link below.

Burley Coho XC Trailer