When driving a two-wheeled vehicle it is important to ensure it is properly balanced. This practice is not only important for your animal’s ability to pull, but aids in their comfort, and will ensure you benefit from a smoother ride.
Learning to balance a cart can take time, but is relatively simple. To start you must first find the balance point of the vehicle prior to hitching. This exercise is simple and requires two people (the driver, and an assistant).
Step One:
Start by selecting a flat area, and have the assistant hold the shafts (securely one in each hand) at the height they normally would rest in the tug of the harness.
Step Two:
The intended driver should step into the cart, and sit in the correct driving position.
Step Three:
The assistant should raise the shafts until there is a negative weight or overbalance. Once this is achieved it is important that the assistant holds the shafts in place as the driver dismounts and measures the distance between the shaft and ground.
Once this measurement has been taken it is important to ensure that when hitched the shafts sit just below this point, so that they have very little weight on them (typically suggested to be around 5lbs). This ensures that your horse is not carrying much weight on their back, and prevents the vehicle overbalancing which inturn will put stress on the horse’s belly band.
Once the balance point has been found, and the shafts are “floating” in the tugs, you and your horse will be able to enjoy a smoother and more enjoyable ride.
Other things to keep in mind when driving a two wheeled vehicle:
Balance points will change as you are driving. It is important to be an active driver and adjust your weight back and forth depending on the incline and travel of hills, and other uneven surfaces to help ensure that the shafts remain balanced.
- Balance points will change as you are driving. It is important to be an active driver and adjust your weight back and forth depending on the incline and travel of hills, and other uneven surfaces to help ensure that the shafts remain balanced.
- Ideally, when the vehicle is balanced, the seat should be level, but sometimes it can be hard to achieve. Heavy shafted carts will often have a balance point that causes the seat to slope towards the rear of the vehicle. Whereas light shafted carts will have the opposite effect with the seat tilted forwards and the shafts pointing downwards. Both of these issues can potentially be corrected by adding weight to the cart. In the case of a heavy shafted cart adding weight under the seat behind the axle, or with a light shafter cart it can be balanced by adding counterweight in front of the axle. The goal of adding weight to the cart is to produce a level seat for the driver.
- When adding a passenger to your cart your weight/balance will change and the cart may need to be adjusted.
- Some carts have a moveable seat to aid in balancing the cart, and can help provide more levels of adjustment to suit the driver.