Review: Tout Terrain Single Trailer after 10,000km

We bought our Tout Terrain Singletrailer more than four years ago now. Since then we have toured over 10,000km towing our daughter through every type of terrain imaginable. We’ve done extensive off-road bikepacking trips like the Baja Divide and Great Divide Mountain Biking Route, tackled some pretty gnarly single track in the hills of Vermont and used it as a daily commuter in the streets of Boston. We’ve cycled through every kind of weather you can imagine from blazing desert heat in Mexico, torrential downpours in Florida and a blizzard in Utah. We have put this thing through it’s paces in more ways than we can count. So was the high cost of admission to the singletrailer club worth it? Read on to find out. I’ll also outline the things we love most about the trailer, the things we wish we could change about it and tips and tricks for using it to its full advantage.

My wife and I had started cycle touring long before the idea of having kids had seriously been considered. After a fateful trip to Mongolia with our woefully underequipped touring bikes we fell in love with exploring wild open places by bicycle. Everything suddenly clicked for us. The speed of travel was both slow enough for us to truly experience and breathe in our surroundings but fast enough that we didn’t feel frustrated by our pace. Getting off the pavement separated us from the vast majority of traffic which was always a source of stress. The less explored “wild places” in between more typical travel destinations inspired our curiosity and drive to explore above all else. We felt complete freedom moving through the landscape under our own power, carrying just what we needed to survive but ultimately at the mercy of mother nature and the unknown that lay ahead. We weren’t aware of it at the time but our fates had been sealed; we were now officially bikepackers. Over the course of many years and many far flung adventures with an ever changing assortment of gear, travelling the world by bicycle became more than a pastime; it was slowly becoming part of our identity. So much so that when we finally decided to have our first child we committed to each other that we were not going to let being parents get in the way of our passion, and more so, we wanted to expose our children to the joy and beauty of living simply from as early an age as possible. Undoubtedly bringing a child with us was going to be a challenge, but so much of bikepacking has to do with preparing for and overcoming challenges within a sea of constraints; we just needed to properly identify what those challenges were. And so we began. From the moment our daughter could physically be carried on our bikes we were rolling. First they were short rides around our neighborhood which gradually extended to day rides first on bike paths and then on well graded trails followed by some light single-track. By the time we were ready to try our first overnight we had purchased a second hand, two wheeled trailer and kept the riding as tame as possible. We still didn’t know if our grand vision of a bikepacking family was truly in the cards so we tried to keep our investment in it as small as possible. Our final test was a ten day, mostly off-road loop through central Vermont. Needless to say, we found our rhythm, our daughter proved to us that she was ready and more importantly enjoyed the adventure. Rehearsal was over. it was time to prepare for the real thing.

If you’re anything like us, any major purchase is preceded by an obsessive amount of research. When it comes to bike gear where every ounce of weight is carefully scrutinized, debated and constantly reconsidered the ante is even higher and the decision over what is truly essential can drive one to the edge of lunacy. In many ways, choosing a trailer for our daughter was the most important gear decision we had ever had to make; even more so than our own bikes. Let me explain. For a child, especially one as young as ours was, a trailer is more than just a method of transportation. It’s their play space packed with those oh so essential toys (see our suggested list of toys by age), rocks and pine cones. It’s where they will take at least some of their naps while you get in the majority of your miles for the day. It’s their high chair for when snacks are on order, which for us was most of the time. And ultimately it’s their window to the world you are trying to explore together. If the trailer you choose doesn’t meet all of these needs it’s going to have more impact on your ability to enjoy your surroundings than anything else. We’ve ridden for months through many countries on bikes we didn’t like that left us half broken by the end of the day but we still had the desire to continue. If your child is unhappy day after day because they are uncomfortable it’ll not only make you miserable but you’ll probably decide it’s not worth it or fair to them fairly quickly and have to reconsider the idea of bike touring with them altogether. So no pressure right?

So we started by looking at all the options available to us, which four years ago were far fewer than today. We poured over reviews, online forums and polled our own community to try to figure out which trailer would strike the right balance for our specific needs as an aspiring off-road bikepacking family. We found a lot of reviews for the dominant two wheeled options written from every possible perspective, from city commuters to intrepid long range tourers, but relatively few for the Singletrailer. Any reviews we could find were written from the perspective of singletrack loving mountain bikers, which makes total sense when you consider that’s who it was designed for in the first place. It was obvious that the Singletrailer was in a class all its own when it came to handling the type of gnarly terrain we more often than not find ourselves in but how would it function on a long distance tour? We have spent the past four years answering this and many other questions in hopes of helping other bike loving adventure families make the best possible decision for themselves. Let’s get into the nitty gritty!

Performance in the Bumpy Stuff

To say the Singletrailer outperforms it’s two wheeled counterparts when it comes to off road riding is an enormous understatement. For starters the singular wheel is equipped with a high end, dampened shock you’d find on full suspension mountain bikes. The shock can be mounted in two positions depending on whether you’re on the trail or well graded terrain. In the trail/bumpy position the trailer has more clearance than your bike and an astounding 8 inches of travel. That’s a serious amount of squish! We’ve found ourselves on some pretty unforgiving routes where we were riding down dry river beds paved in baby heads, or a segment of the Baja Divide known by locals as ‘The Tear’ where we were regularly dropping down 8 inch ledges only to look back and see our daughter practicing her reading and writing skills. It really is that impressive.

Ok, so it’s a cushy ride but else does it do? There are two other key performance factors that are of a benefit for all types of riding. The first is that the width of the trailer is noticeably narrower than any other you may have looked at. This is not a trailer you could possibly imagine slipping two kids into side by side and for good reason. At 18 inches wide it’s probbaly pretty close to the width of your bike’s handlebars or if you’re rear end if you’re loaded up with panniers. That means if you’re able to squeeze through between that tree and that rock you can rest assured that your bike rider in training in the backseat will follow beautifully. Combine this with the defining single wheel design and you may actually forget you’re hauling a passenger. With a single wheel that tracks your own wheels all you have to do is find the best line for yourself and let the trailer follow. This means that when you’re starting to get into a bit of technical stuff you can focus on the riding and not have your mind split between your experience and your kids. Not only does this make the ride more enjoyable but it’s safer for both of you. If you’re constantly trying to split the difference between where your wheel should go and where you think their two wheels are gonna end up you’re probably not going to make the best decisions. This makes total sense if you’re trying to do split second thinking for three different lines simultaneously! Besides that, in practice you’ll be lucky if you can accurately predict what two wide set trailer wheels that you can’t see are actually going to roll over. In our experience I would estimate that we got it right about 33% of the time. That’s a whole lot of misses and a whole lot of extra bumps for your little one. Not only will this be potentially disturbing for your child and turn them off biking all together, but in a two wheeled trailer it’s potentially dangerous. Most two wheeled trailers attach to your bike via a ball hitch and socket at your rear hub that allows a full range of motion. This means that your lean does not affect the trailer which is designed to keep two wheels on the ground as much as possible. But what this independent rotational motion also means is that in extreme circumstances the trailer could flip over on its side while you’re riding. Granted this is an extreme circumstance but if one of the wheels was to hit an obstacle hard enough while at speed it could happen. This is physically impossible with the Singletrailer. The way the hitch is designed and mounted allows for independent movement up and down and for turning but not side to side. The trailer and your bike are rigidly connected in this way so that the only way they can go down is if you go down with them. Again, one less thing to worry about while riding. As long as you are making the best and safest decisions for yourself those decisions are instantly transmitted to your little rider. There is one big caveat in all of this which is that if you’re into some real twisty turny trails the trailers wheel won’t be tracking perfectly with yours and you’ll have to be worried about the trailer getting clipped on tight curves when riding close to objects like trees and big rocks. But even in this situation the Singletrailer with its narrow width and single wheel will still outshine the two wheelers.

Performance on the Smooth

Here is where the benefits of the Singletrailer over a classic two wheeled trailer are a little less apparent. You still get all the benefits of the suspension, tracking, narrow width that allow you to focus on the road ahead rather than the trailer behind but the need for those things are far less when the going’s easy. We’ve used the Singletrailer as a daily commuter and I still prefer it to when we had our two wheeled trailer but I wouldn’t say it was essential for the task. If we were primarily urban riders doing some occasional weekend gravel we probably wouldn’t have made the investment in our tour terrain. Getting off the beaten path is really where the trailer shines and becomes a total game changer both for you and your kiddo.

Enclosure

Oh the enclosure… this is where things get a little tricky. I’ll preface this section by saying that we have an older generation trailer and enclosure and we understand improvements have been made in the most current iteration. That being said we have found the enclosure to be the weakest part of the Tout Terrain’s design especially if you aim to use the trailer the way we do on long distance tours. For day rides most of the points we raise below will be of lesser consequence.

The enclosure is stretched around the lightweight steel tube frame and secured view long Velcro strips. There is one large opening that goes from the top of the trailer and extends down to the very front. There are two options for closing the opening. A mesh for keeping bugs out and a weather protecting option including a large clear plastic window. Both of these optional flaps are per men’s toy sewn into the trailer and can’t be removed. We’ve found very little use for the bug netting and sometimes wish we could remove it to save weight and clean things up a little but this really isn’t a big deal. What’s proved to be a major pain point is how the flaps secure to the main enclosure using snaps. 50% of our snaps failed within the first year of use leading us to use safety pins in their place. Not ideal and quite fussy to deal with in use. The second major issue is that even with the weather protecting layer attached the enclosure is far from waterproof. By design their are two major penetrations at the top of the trailer to allow the top of the frame to penetrate which allow rain in. The way the enclosure Velcro was closed at the bottom l also leaves two major penetrations allowing water in near where your child’s feet rest. On top of that the fabric itself is not waterproof put only water resistant. We’ve found this to be very troublesome when you find yourself in an unexpected downpour. It can be stressful enough to deal with heavy weather as an adult but having your child getting dripped on and screaming at you to help when there’s very little you can do makes it all the worse. We’ve tried several remedies like shoving plastic bags in the openings and treating the fabric with Nikwax waterproofing with some success but the fabric at the top of the trailer tends to sag allowing a pond to form up there and eventually the rain will get through and you may be left scrambling to comfort a distraught little human in the pouring rain. We beleive tour terrain is aware of these issues and has remedied some in the latest design which we have yet got try. We will be sure to revise the review if we ever get our hands on a newer one.

The other issue is with regards to the durability of the enclosure. Granted we’ve had our trailer for a while now and used it extensively but we would still expect it to perform better than it has. In several locations where the fabric meets and ultimately rubs against the frame the fabric has worn to the point where the frame is starting to come through. One of several design choices that has most likely accelerated this process is that the floor of the trailer is simply part of the fabric enclosure so when your child gets in and out of the trailer their weight presses down on the fabric floor stretching and pulling the entire enclosure with it. It would be nice to see a semi rigid floor incorporated into future designs to remove that strain. We’ve also determined that a lack of reinforcement on the exterior in these same locations has created led an opportunity for excessive wear when the strainer is stored and packed especially in a vehicle where some rubbing could occur.

Interior

Inside the trailer there is a nicely ventilated seat and a stellar harness to keep your little one safe and comfortable. In all of our riding we’ve never heard a single complaint about comfort. There have been a whole host of other complaints but seat and harness have never been on that list. There are two mesh pockets, one on either side which allow you to store toys, books, treats… etc. the storage is adequate for a day ride but is a bit limited for long term routing. For this reason we end up storing extra toys, shoes and other kid related necessities below the seat. It should be noted that storing items under the seat limits the through ventilation designed into the trailer as the one and only vent is located here but it’s just too valuable a space to ignore for storage in our opinion. We’d love it if additional vents could be located behind or alongside the seat back to help mitigate this.

The Singletrailer also comes with a sunshade you can attach to the upper frame which does a reasonable job in high noon sun but in our experience is largely ineffective at keeping the sun off. Even with the front fully open this can result in some heat build up inside the trailer. There’s a vent sewn in under the seat to help with airflow but it’s not effective enough to counter the radiant heat of a hot sunny day. For this reason we designed our own solution cutting some reflectix we bought at the hardware store to to provide side window coverage. They’re lightweight, can be rolled up and stowed along each side of the seat back and provide pure shade on hot days. We typically will put up one side in the morning, both around midday when the sun is highest and then the alternate side for the afternoon following the sun direction.

Hitch & Kickstand

One of the items that gets a lot of attention in other people’s reviews of the trailer is the hitch. It seems like people either love it or hate it. Personally we love it. The hitch is a precision milled component with high quality sealed bearings that should outlast the trailer itself. That being said there is some play in the system when it comes time to attach the trailer to your bike. You’ll notice that when you slip the hitch onto the seat post mount and slide in the safety pin there is a fair amount of rotational movement allowed before clamping down the quick release. This means that you have to visually align the trailer to your bike BEFORE you clamp down on the quick release or your child will be riding at a jaunty angle when you’re upright. We’ve found that the best way to do this is to raise the trailer onto its kickstand after putting in the safety pin but before clamping. this will ensure that the trailer is nice and level and stabilize the whole assembly while you get everything aligned. Then it’s just a matter of aligning your bike so that it’s in line with the trailer and vertical before clamping. It’s important to get a good amount of clamping pressure to ensure the trailers doesn’t slip while riding and end up at an angle.

The kickstand is a great feature to have and plenty stable enough to support both the trailer and a fully loaded touring bike. That being said always support the bike when your shield is crawling in or out as the eccentric load of their body hanging off the side will definitely cause the everything to come tumbling down. The kickstand is made of the same lightweight steel tubing used for the frame and comes with two plastic sleeves to help protect the metal. These wore through very quickly and so now the bear metal is what rest and scrapes on the ground. This is a bit concerning and it’s definitely exposed some bare metal over the years but not to the point of wearing through the tubing. A more wear resistant replaceable sleeve would be a nice design upgrade in future versions. The kickstand is designed to be operated with one hand or foot via a spring loaded latch. This works well for releasing and stowing although the spring has come off of its mount several times requiring adjustment. The repair was easily made in the field but a more robust system would definitely make things more foolproof.

Weight & Packability

At just over 20lbs the Singletrailer is remarkably light. Weight was obviously a primary design objective which is what lead to a fairly minimalist design when compared to its competitors. You can’t convert the Singletrailer into a stroller, or attach skis or send it to space but that’s the whole idea behind the trailer. It’s the best at what it does. Nothing more and nothing less. Our assumption is that part of this design ethos is what led to the trailer being less collapsible than others. The wheel comes off, shock folds down along with the hitch arm and the upper portion of the frame but the main body of the trailer is not foldable. This can pose a challenge for transportation e either in a Car with a more traditional trunk rather than hatch or when taking it with you on a plane. We tend to like to go to far flung places and so this has meant boxing and paying for the trailer as oversized baggage which can be quite expensive. In an ideal world the trailer would have one more mechanism for folding to get it to pack into a normal bike box but for the limited number of times this is an actual problem it may not be worth the additional weight and complication involved.

Value & Conclusion

One of the most common talking points about the Singletrailer on reviews and comment threads is the cost. This makes sense to an extent when you consider that it is close to twice the price of most other competitors but the real question the price differential brings up is one of value. Is the extra cost worth it when compared to other options available. The answer is that it depends. After reading this review you should have a good idea what aspects and qualities set the Singletrailer apart from any other trailer available as well as the design concessions necessary to achieve its enhanced capabilities. The question then becomes are the areas in which the trailer really shines, like performance over rough terrain, relatively unchanged rider experience for you, narrow width for cycling in through tight passages of value to you and used frequently enough to ward off any possible buyers remorse in the future. For us and our style of long distance mixed terrain touring the answer is unequivocally YES, but I could see that for others who may only use the trailer to its full advantage on occasion the answer would be a bit more difficult to come to. I would say that based on our experience and time spent using the trailer I can see its benefits extending to all types of riding even urban cycling and for that reason it’s value in our opinion transcends its primary use as a single track slayer. In short, if you can afford it, you won’t be disappointed.

Topics to cover:

- performance
- weather and Ventilation
- Design
- Weight and packability
- tubeless set-up how to.
- Availability
- Price
- Conclusion


and at the time it felt like we had both won and lost the lottery. Could the hefty price tag p


Immediately after submitting my credit card laying down almost as much money as we had spent on our bikes I started to wonder if we had made a terrible mistake. At the time in 2019 finding a singletrailer in America to purchase was next to impossible. We chased countless leads and Reddit forums documenting other people’s harrowing journeys to get their hands on one of these sought after, German engineered, hand-made works of child toting artistry only to come up empty handed again and again. And then one fateful day after punching in the same search