Shop Talk

Time to dork out about fabricating bike trailers.
This is the adjustable jig I made, being used to square up a hoop that will be the main frame of a bike trailer. It's basically a flat surface to which items can be conveniently clamped in various configurations. An essential part are the four pieces of angle iron that have clamp tabs welded to them. I square up the angle iron pieces to the desired dimensions, then it can aid me in the making of tubular hoops. When making sure things are square in the backyard with only a tape measure, its essential to have access to nice corners. I use the corners of the angle iron to square up. In tubular structures with bends, there are no corners so I have to have some kind of external reference structure. That's when the jig steps in.

Its sitting on some sawhorses made from rebar. I salvaged some rebar from a junk pile and I finally got around to making something out of it. My friend Tim (bandmate/ drummer for The Inheritance (http://www.myspace.com/theinheritanceatx) helped me make them so he could practice welding.

Bikes Across Borders 2010 Kitchen Trailer

You know you are a freak when there is a normal house's kitchen 5 feet away yet you still decide to prepare dinner for 34 hippies out in the cold, dark night on the kitchen trailer.
The guys in these pics truly are awesome individuals. The one on the left especially. (Roy Coon, http://www.winovino.com/bio/)

Implied: you are off-center if you are riding a bicycle to Monterrey Mexico with 34 people.

Stomping on the basic frame for fun, attempting to balance on it.

Super hardcore adventure. Cargo bike maxed out. You'll notice my back tire is flat, as a group of 34 people were getting a flat once a minute because the roads were littered with little pieces of invisible tire-poking wire. We suspect that the creepy government/mafia/drug-lord secret society was planting the pieces of wire in the road to slow us down for who knows what...

New sport idea: "dicycle", (or "die"-cycle). A bicycle type vehicle with two wheels parallel to each other in separate planes. (not co-linear like normal bike). balance on it like a skateboard and get really wicked at balance and learning how to fall, using abdominal muscles.

Skeleton Kitchen trailer in use. Snacks!

Safety orange.

Trailer's table top definitely worth its weight [in plywood?] no, in dinner. Picture taken in south Texas, San Miguel, very close to US/Mex border. Note the cut-off crutch legs that are being used as stabilizers for the portable kitchen cart so it could stand alone.

Also note the roller bar in the back (to the left, partially visible). For lack of appropriate materials, I made it out of a broken bicycle pump and a steel wheel hub complete with axle and bearings, etc... The pump's steel chamber served as the roller's main body. I cut the hub (including axle) in half and brazed the flanges to the ends of the chamber tube. They matched up pretty good and eye-balling it centered was good enough. The pieces of the axle got mounted to each side of the trailer, and the cones got locked in the appropriate spots once I managed to get it all set up. I'm not sure if it would be possible to easily service the bearings but it would be possible to uneasily service them.

It made it possible for people to come up behind the trailer (when it was being pulled down the road) and push the trailer with the front wheel of their bike. This wasn't the safest thing in the world, and you had to practice it and have good balance.
Witnesses can attest to its functionality and danger. Double edged sword.

Test ride in the beginning

Basic flatbed trailer, useful for all kinds of stuff.

One of the hitches that is commonly used. The clamp part is hard plastic, clamps to the frame and comes on and off the bike in seconds with no tools.

14mm BMX wheels used as stub axle wheels. Mounted to a piece of 1 1/2 inch by 1/8 angle iron. The axles have been shortened a bit.

New Design

Here is the trailer I built for the Sunflower co-op in south Austin, June 2010.
Above you can see the new style that I am experimenting with; using thin-wall conduit as the frame and using stub axle wheels.

The conduit is very lightweight and inexpensive; I can bend, cut, and weld/braze it very easily. Stub axle wheels are wheels that are mounted from only one side of the axle (as opposed to normal bicycle wheels which mount to both sides). These save material weight and labor.

Also, the nice curvature of the bent tubing makes for a smoother look and removes the sharp corners prevalent in the rectangular designs made from square tubing.

All of these developments are leading the way to the end goal of a trailer design that is as strong, lightweight, elegant and inexpensive as it physically can be.

Notice that the trailer was designed specifically to hold these plastic containers. That's why it has no built in floor made of wood, fabric, etc. Some kind of flooring could be made for the trailer if it needed to be a general utility trailer.

The next one will have side rails that are about 3 inches higher, meaning they will surpass the wheels. I will also beef up the supports for the side rails. This would make it possible to rest bulky--yet relatively lightweight-- items on the trailer, making the trailer more versatile.

Utility Trailer
Outside dimensions: 34"x 32"
Cargo Area: 34"x 20.25"
Hitch: Axle mount (Will work with all common bicycles)
Price $150
email: hoodoopoodoo@hotmail.com

32"x34" utility trailer with roll bars