bike trailers
 

A couple of years ago when gas prices were climbing steadily I got interested in pedal assisted biking and built qute a neat little clip-on for an acquired MTB based on a 25cc weedeater engine, roller drive. Although it worked a treat is was very noisy and left a blue smoke trail behind it. I was reluctant to ride it on shared cycle/pedestrian paths because it attracted too much attention.

I then decided to go electric, a decision I have certainly not regretted. I bought a front wheel hub motor kitset for $NZ320 (including 2 x 12v SLA batteries), controller, wiring harness, panniers etc. Everything worked out just fine. I could cruise around town (pedal assisted - I get some exercise!) at around 28kph with a range of about 20kms.

HOWEVER, you can't carry a helluva lot just on a bike carrier and the heavy batteries put a fair strain on the pannier mountings etc. I thought a bike trailer might be worth looking into and after a lot of searching around on the internet I built one using light angle iron, drilled and bolted - not welded due to possible required modifications - with an air hose coupling centred behind the back wheel on a drawbar made of aluminium channel.

I plonked a couple of 12v SLAs in the trailer and hooked them up via a little extension lead to the controller. The rig worked well but I became dissastisfied with the central hitch when I saw a couple of tricky ones on the net using a caster wheel mount. That was a brilliant idea whoever thought of it first! The offset drawbar works far better than I imagined it would - there is no rattle or vibration and the trailer runs nice and true with the heavy batteries in it. (There is still plenty of room for groceries and stuff.)

It might seem a bit stupid for an old guy of 74 to be mucking around like this but I'm having a ton of fun fiddling with the contraption and riding it around and about on errands and stuff. If anyone is interested I've got some pics.

No one is ever too old to tinker IMO! :D

What do you mean, if anyone is interested? Of course we're interested. We want pics!

Welcome to EM

i have aquiored the wheels for my bike trailer - on the list for Spring Work.

please post pics..

steve

Welcome to ecomodder!
I'd love to see the pictures.

Old guy? Yeah, sure: you should meet my neighbor, who's 94, and still mucking about.

Well, I never expected such prompt interest! Here are some pics:

I posted this in another thread also. If you are looking for trailer ideas, this site sells a scooter trailer that is made for small scooters and may give people some ideas.

Another popular option for the trailer hitch is a short length of fabric and rubber from the scrap heap. Heavy Vee belts or truck tires are suitable sources. To eliminate the trailer while hauling a moderatly increased load, the rear of the bike frame can be extended. Here's a popular kit for that: Xtracycle: Efficient Bike Extender

I built this last year, now I need the electric conversion.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-jm...1613-biket.jpg

It's a good time of year to watch CL for bike trailers. At the end of the summer I picked up a good sturdy baby trailer with very faded fabric for $20.

I am not 74 yet but I hope to be one day.
Better to wear out than rust out (or be left out) I think.
More power to you and go for it.

Keep us posted on how you go.

Pete.

baby stroller
 

I scored an aluminum 3-wheeled baby stroller with 20-inch tires a few years back.
I lost the 3rd wheel,flipped the unit,and added a hitch from a child's front wheel-less cycle mate which attaches behind the parent's bike to create a relatively light-weight 2-wheel trailer.
Adding a Sear's S-Car-Go,all-weather,rooftop storage case gave me a 'pickup-truck' when combined with my tricycle,something I've made the 6-mile one-way commute to Denton and back on a number of times.
She's heavy but a brute and can handle major shopping.
The guts and battery from a 24-VDC scooter may allow some 'assist' for the gentle hills.A future project.
This contraption has saved my bacon a few times when the T-100 decided to go south on me.

I've been keeping a few "Scrap" bikes around for basically this sort of thing... never know when the wheels, axles, etc might come in handy for something, like a yard cart.
I don't really ride much, but I would if I had a motorized vehicle... I'm still looking into building a reverse trike moped-dealy. If I do that, I'll put a lynch-hitch on the back of it and also build a small trailer with two wheels to pull behind it.

I had also thought about a single wheeled trailer, but that brings up stability issues when improperly loaded, or objects moving, etc... I'd rather take the penalty for the extra tire all the time, than take the penalty for wiping out at 40 MPH just one time.

trike and 1-wheel trailer
 

If you did the trike,would it's 'tripod' base not allow the 1-wheel trailer to work?
When I pulled the 1-wheeler behind the CRX it was a dream.There wasn't anything I could do to de-stabilize the car.I had not de-raked the fork of the doner motorcycle I used,which caused the trailer to lean during turns.What a riot!
Most amusing were the looks on onlooker faces who witnessed this kinetic ballet.

I think it would really depend on how I put it together, honestly. If I put the single wheel at the back, as with one of the images above, and made sure that the trailer were mounted in such a way that I could not throw off the CG too much to either side, I suppose it wouldn't make the trike unstable at all.

However, if I could keep all the weight centered so that the tongue was neutral, it wouldn't feel like I was pulling a trailer at all (except the added weight, obviously). This is how I try to load larger trailers, as well, so that the tongue is mostly neutral, or under very little load. Never negative load on the tongue, though.

Yard sale finds:

I have this kind of 'rearcar', except here it is more like 'frontcar' and actually it is called milk cart.

This is just example photo from some Japanese site but what I have is almost the same minus the sides:
http://mak-kawa.my.coocan.jp/digicam...rcar_corps.jpg

I did found photo from this site:
*istD Gallery

I'm thinking of putting trailer to my bicycle, but I don't know if I should use that cart as a base, weight might be bit on high side as it is made to easily carry 100kg or even more, so cart is very strong and bit of heavy, I guess it alone weights more than 20kg.

It would be simple to connect it to bicycle, last picture at bottom of this page shows how someone in Japan has connected 'rearcar' with rather simple means to bicycle:
Bicycle trailer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can use some metal parts however as I have equipment to make things from metal, just source material is something that I'm lacking always.

My use for trailer is mostly to haul shopping bags, but also I'm interested if it would be possible to make fairing to cart so that it would help with aerodynamics, but for this my cart might be bit too wide.

I have some very thin walled metal pipes too, only issue with those is that they are really thin and very difficult to weld on.

Using cart would leave back of bicycle relatively free for putting some fairing there to improve aerodynamics, currently I'm loading bike bags to rear of bicycle but those are tad small to really put week worth of shoppings there, even it might even help a bit with aero.

Wind is my greatest nemesis with bicycling.

edit: I did quick hack job to attach cart to bicycle, took few horribly bad photos, that camera has broken screen so it is bit of luck to get shot right, lately it has also developed -2EV from somewhere and without seeing impossible to fix that.

Anyway, here is the cart, just the frame at the moment, leaking tires, one nut missing from wheel axle so one tire has variable toe:
http://jtbo.pp.fi/images/cycling/trailer_frame.jpg

Hinge is rather dirty job, somehow center did move after I drilled hole perfectly center of metal, riiight.
http://jtbo.pp.fi/images/cycling/crude_hitch.jpg

It works, of course needs lot of work to make usable, but even that it weights a lot it seem to follow nicely. Floor is made of wood and does weight close to 10kg alone, with that it is easily 30kg, so need to think way to loose weight from that.

The idea of adding a trailer to an electric bike makes perfect sense epecially if you need an increase in battery capacity. The single wheel trailer potentially has less air drag. Fairing the bike and trailer together would reduce energy required by up to half. We have lighter materials available than the Japanese utility cart. Attach the hitch to the frame and tune up your bike's brakes. I built my Jamis Aragon to tow a two wheel, rear facing trailer attached to the seat tube. The switch from 16" spoked wheels to 20" nylon BMX wheels improved the ride and weight capacity.