Saturday, June 2, 2018

Projects - Keeping Busy

My oldest daughter, by some other parents, has decided she likes camping, and would like to do this from her bicycle. Fine, there are several hundred like-minded souls wandering around the Denver area on bicycles, camping wherever they find themselves when the sun goes down, but let's take it a bit further. She found some pictures of camping trailers moved by pedal power on the net, and wants to go that way.

OK then how about a trailer about 6 feet long to tow behind a bicycle with a waterproof "lid" of some sort.
 Here's a basic frame in need of some sort of flooring and a top. Maybe just ribs and a tarp like a Conestoga wagon. Or maybe something more artsy like a Corrugated plastic set of walls more like a little Airstream. The frame is 1x1x1/8 aluminum tube, bolted together, with wheels and hitch hardware from a Schwinn kiddie carrier trailer. We are trying to source some 10mm Coroplast to use for flooring but so far this is proving elusive. And expensive.
Here we are carrying my regular bike. It pulls easily so far although with flooring, covering, and a set of camping gear it might not be so easy. Never fear, there's a solution:
This rig goes for as little as $168. I saw one on the road the other day and I have to admit I was impressed. The old boy riding it got across 6 lanes and up to around 20mph in short enough order and with so little noise I could barely hear the motor running. Sharp looking rig too.

At the rate I'm going, I should have some finish pics ready to go by around the end of this month. Don't hold me to that.

2 comments:

Merle said...

Before you spring the bucks do some investigating. Some of these little motors have a service life of about 3,000 hours.

bob r said...

Maybe a used plastic barrel would work for the trailer storage holder. It would be pretty easy to put a door on both ends. Or cut in half length-wise and use half as a top.

In my area they go for $10 -- 30 or 55 gallons. Previous usage might have been food or soap or other easily cleaned material.