Group test: Cargo trailers for bikes

Cargo trailers turn any bike into a load hauler. They’re indispensable for cycling with items that are too big or too heavy for panniers. And they provide car-boot-style convenience for large collections of smaller things, such as bags of groceries.

Whatever bike you use for towing, its brakes must be good enough to stop you safely with the added weight of a loaded trailer. Its gears must go low enough – or its electric assistance be powerful enough – to get you up the usual hills you’ll encounter.

If you use a trailer between sunset and sunrise, it must have a red rear light and a triangular red rear reflector. Yes, triangular. I’m not aware of any trailer that comes with a triangular reflector or where you might get one suitable for cycle use. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be policed.

There are no specific restrictions on what you can carry in a trailer. Cargo models aren’t suitable for carrying children, of course, and some have warnings to that effect. Conversely, child trailers will carry soft loads like shopping – along with one or two children, if everyone is comfortable.

To test these trailers under load, I mostly used logs – in bags or boxes where none was provided. My towing bike was a Jones Plus LWB with: a 20in bottom gear; Avid BB7 disc brakes; an M12×1.75 thru-axle for 148mm dropouts; and 29×2.6in tyres. It worked really well.

Burley Flatbed

Price: £314.99
Weight: 6.7kg
Max load: 45kg
Load bed: 80L×52-56W (cm)
Overall width: 77cm
Available from: Burley

Burley has been making cycle trailers since 1978, and the range includes everything from dog trailers to trailer cycles for junior pedallers. I’d planned to review the upright Travoy shopping trailer but it was temporarily unavailable.

The Flatbed is more of an all-rounder, accommodating longer loads as well as things like groceries – for which you’ll need a large bag, such as a Burley Drybag (£98) or a blue Ikea Frakta (75p), or maybe just a Burley Cargo Bungee Net (£22).

The Flatbed is lightweight for its size as the base and sides are tarpaulin and the tubing aluminium. It goes together and come apart without tools: it’s secured with (slightly rattly) retaining pins. I could pack it down to 80×62×22cm, including the 16in wheels, in a couple of minutes, using two bungees to strap it all together

The minimalist hitch is simple and effective. It’s designed for solid axles and – with a spacer that’s easily lost if you’re careless – quick releases. Dedicated Burley Thru Axles (£65.99) are available.

While the Flatbed arrived without one, the hitch hole is wide enough to admit a 12mm thru-axle. If you tow the trailer like this, make sure the axle engages plenty of threads. Otherwise buy a Burley Thru Axle.

You can easily hang the Flatbed on a wall for storage. The reflectors are its only real weakness: they protrude and will eventually get snapped off, as my old, battle-scarred Burley Nomad attests. They also stop you standing the trailer on its end when not in use.

Verdict: A lightweight, versatile and easily stored trailer that needs a big bag for loose loads

Carry Freedom Y Trailer Small

Price: £360
Weight: 6.37kg
Max load: 45kg
Load bed: 58L×38W (cm)
Overall width: 62cm
Available from: Carry Freedom

This is the smallest of Carry Freedom’s Y Trailers. There’s also a Large (£420), which I tested in the June/July 2016 issue, and an XL (£500). All three have just had a cost reduction which, given the spartan design, they needed.

The build quality is excellent. With its hard wooden base, the Y Trailer works well with a box strapped or bolted in place. Alternatively, you could strap on a large bag – or anything else that fits the load bed.

For wider loads, Carry Freedom has an Extra Wide Axle Beam (£95). For long loads, there are various tow-bar extensions (from £122). Other extras include a Hand Cart Handle (£158), flags, straps and more. These options make the Y Trailer very versatile – and potentially quite dear.

Like the Burley Flatbed, the Y Trailer has a simple, sturdy hitch designed for solid and QR axles. Again, the spacer for the latter is easily lost. There’s no provision for thru-axles.

Carry Freedom’s 14mm e-bike hitch (£34, pictured inset above) does work if there’s enough axle thread engagement. A better solution, I found, is an M-Wave 12mm Converter Thru Axle (see below), with its threaded cam lever replaced by a 40mm M6 bolt and a washer. This makes room for the ‘lollipop’ hitch.

The Y Trailer is usefully narrow, so I could wheel it into my workshop. It’s flat and easy to store once its 16in wheels are removed. You can pack it small enough for a train if you have a 5mm Allen key for the tow bar. The reflectors are inset, so they’re less likely to be snapped off.

Verdict: A sturdy and versatile flatbed trailer with accessories for everything – but no dedicated thru-axle at the moment

FollowMe Cargo

Price: £199
Weight: 4.7kg
Max load: 28kg
Load bed: 35L×10W (rack top)
Overall width: 13cm plus panniers
Available from: FollowMe Tandem

The RRP for the FollowMe Cargo is £279.95 but it’s been on offer for £199 for a while. It’s a single-wheel, pannier-rack trailer like the Extrawheel. You could use it for touring or shopping on a bike without a rack, or to fit even more panniers to a bike that already has a rack or two.

Apart from a trunk bag, panniers are essentially all the FollowMe Cargo will carry. I’d like optional side frames, like a cargo bike’s foot plates, for strapping on boxes or crates, or a top deck for bulky, lightweight items. Unlike the Extrawheel, the FollowMe’s 20in-wheel sits entirely beneath the rack.

Large rear panniers fit fine, however, and the FollowMe still handles well with them heavily loaded. There’s minimal wag from the trailer at normal cycling speeds. Only at walking pace – on or off the bike – is it more cumbersome than the two-wheelers here.

With bags removed, the FollowMe is narrow and lightweight, making it easy to store. The articulated towbar doesn’t come apart quickly but has to do so if you want to smuggle it onto a train as luggage; it’s too long otherwise.

By default, it attaches to a replacement quick-release axle, which also fits the FollowMe Tandem. I tested it with a Thru Axle Adaptor M12 (£60); solid-axle adaptors are £16.

To fit the trailer to my wide-axle, big-tyre towing bike, I had to splay the towing arms, remove the trailer’s mini front mudguard and remove a Topeak Babysitter Disc rear rack, which fouled the FollowMe’s dog-leg attachment.

Verdict: Affordable and easy to tow, the FollowMe Cargo enables any bike to carry two large panniers

M-Wave Stalwart Carry Fold 1

Price: £350
Weight: 10.6kg
Max load: 45kg
Load bed: 64L×44W
Overall width: 65.5cm
Available from: Ison Distribution

M-Wave makes a range of good-value cycle trailers, principally for the German market. The Stalwart Carry Fold 1 is the brand’s premium cargo trailer. There’s also a Stalwart Carry Fold 2 with a steel frame and no bag or handcart bar (£225), and a BOB-Yak-style Singletrack Luggage Trailer (£169.99).

The Stalwart Carry Fold 1 is the most fully featured trailer in this test.

It comes with a removable, 90-litre nylon luggage bag strapped to the base and Velcro-fastened to the fold-down sides. (One side had a slightly misaligned retaining pin hole, which required light tapping with a hammer.) You can thus do the weekly grocery shop without an extra bag or box.

The reversible handcart bar makes it easy to wheel the trailer on foot, and it can be repositioned to function as a parking stand. Plastic bumpers on the trailer’s front corners stop the wheels ramming into walls or gateposts when manoeuvring.

It’s narrow enough to go through pinch points most two-wheelers won’t, and it folds easily to 79×59×30cm for storage. The standard hitch fits QR and solid axles.

A special QR, the Racky Axle (£9.99), enables the hitch to fit bikes that have a rear dropout obscured by a pannier rack, cowled dropouts and so on. For thru-axle bikes, an M-Wave 12mm Converter Thru Axle (£39.99) is required.

My only complaint concerns the sheet steel base, which reverberates and rattles on all but the smoothest tarmac, especially when empty or lightly loaded. This drove me nuts.

Verdict: Noisy but good value and fully featured trailer that fits through doorways and is well suited to shopping

Pashley EuroLoad Trailer

Price: £540
Weight: 14.3kg
Max load: 60kg
Load bed: 84L×60W
Overall width: 79cm
Available from: Pashley

The EuroLoad is designed to hold 80×60cm Euroboxes – hence the name – and is rated to carry up to 60kg. While it’s primarily aimed at businesses, it would be useful to everyday cyclists hauling serious loads at least some of the time.

The weight limit is likely a reflection of what the rider can control rather than what the trailer will withstand. It’s made of steel and held together with hefty bolts, so it’s strong, heavy and durable.

Sidebars and a lip on the base should keep boxes or white goods in place, but there are lots of attachment points as well. The EuroLoad doesn’t fold so you’ll need garage space or similar to store it.

The 80kg-rated Weber trailer hitch is suitably beefy, too. It’s designed for QR and solid axles but a 12mm thru-axle can work if it engages enough threads. Weber’s advice to ensure that a solid axle is turned at least eight times when screwing home makes sense for thru-axles. The hitch has a lock to secure the trailer to the bike. Nice!

Verdict: Overkill for supermarket trips alone but ideal for the big and heavy cargo other trailer’s can’t handle

Thule Reacha City

Price: £529.99
Weight: 8.9kg
Max load: 35kg (60kg walking)
Load bed: 54L×42W (base) to 75L×45W (frame)
Overall width: 79cm
Available from: Thule

The City is the cheapest of Thule’s Reacha trailers, which share the same modular, click-together aluminium frame and accessory range.

The Reacha is large for its load rating: wide because the frame extends around the wheels, which have conventional QRs rather than stub axles; and long because the tow-bar has to reach the seatpost. You can click it apart to make it almost flat for home storage but it’s too big for a train.

Gaping holes at the corners of the Reacha City’s ‘basket’ threatened to, but thankfully didn’t, jettison logs or shopping. Nevertheless, I think the Reacha City Platform (£629.99), fitted with the Reacha platform side panels (£129.99), would be more useful for most cyclists – at least, those happy to spend £760.

The tow-bar attaches to the seatpost with a double Velcro strap. This works better than I thought it would and allows for easy swapping between bikes. The Reacha City handled well and was silent in use. Lovely.

Verdict: A bulky but lightweight trailer I’d prefer with the optional hard base and a significantly lower price

Overall verdict

If you only need the cargo capacity of two panniers, get the FollowMe Cargo. It’s the lightest, cheapest trailer here, and it tracks so well you sometimes forget it’s there.

The Pashley EuroLoad is the polar opposite. It’s a heavy-duty trailer that will haul anything you can tow – DIY materials, bulk-buy shopping, white goods and more.

The Burley Flatbed and Thule Reacha City are similar in scope. They’re both good for bulky but lighter cargo that can be strapped down without tearing a tarp base, and they’ll work fine for shopping with the addition of a big bag. The Burley is more compact and much (£200!) cheaper.

My favourite general-purpose trailers are the Carry Freedom Y Trailer Small and the M-Wave Stalwart Carry Fold 1. Significantly, both are narrow enough to wheel into my back yard and workshop.

The M-Wave is better value and meets all entry-level-trailer needs, especially shopping. The Carry Freedom is bare bones but is more robust and adaptable – as well as quieter.

First published in Cycle magazine, April/May 2026 issue. All information correct at time of publishing.