Projects

The Bike Trailer 02/04-

The Mission: to build a durable and reliable trailer that attaches to the rear of any bicycle. I would use it to mule plants, firewood, luggage, groceries, and whatever I want around campus.

The Plan:
So I've had this idea for a bicycle trailer for a while, probably 8 months or so. It all started when I saw an abandoned shopping cart and began thinking of useful ways to use a cart usefully. Yes, I love redundancy. Yes I do.

So I recognized early on that in order to properly convert a shopping cart into a trailer, I would have to replace the lame indoor shopping wheels with bicycle tires. It just so happened that when we moved in this year (August 2014), whoever our former neighbors were decided to throw away some perfectly horrible bicycles...I've been harvesting limbs and organs from these discarded beauties ever since. I took two front wheels from the two different bikes (happily the same size wheels).

I let the plan fester in my mind as school got super busy last fall, then it began to get cold and I stopped riding my bike for the season, so I put it off even longer. Well now it's February, spring is on its way, and I'm only in 12 credit hours, so I have some spare time to mess with the project. I grabbed up the abandoned cart last week and drew up some basic designs in my "Ideas" book -- very secretive stuff ;p Below are the initial drawings (and maybe a grocery list):

               


So I looked at the cart as a whole and decided I just wanted to use the bottom rack and maybe slide down some of the caging...this design would simplify a bit.

Initiation:
I started by wiping down the portions of the cart I was going to be working on, then removing the wheels. I next took apart the front bike wheels and carefully removed the axle rod and ball bearing system. Lining up the wheel next to the cart showed me that I needed to buy longer rods to use as next-to axles.

I went to the hardware store and bought:

- A 12" fully-threaded rod to use as an axle. (cut in half)

- A more proper hack saw and blades (my college tool box is growing...)

- A nut, washer, and lock-washer set for the rod (5/16" was closest to the one used in wheel)

So I took a good look at how the wheels would attach and put them on roughly (without bearings) just to determine a height I wanted. It is at this point that I decided to forgo my original plan to cut down to the base-level, and just cut the main part of the cart in half to create a top-deck basket:

On the left you can see the full cart with wheels attached, it would make a great chariot for a small person or dog. On the right you can see in the middle where I'm cutting away the top portion of the cart (I had to stop tonight because neighbor complained of noise @ 10:50pm ..oops) I'll resume whenever I next get some time to...

05/04 - UPDATE! So...graduation is quickly approaching and it looks like I won't see this project to completion, at least not on this campus. I should've started it much sooner than my last semester (maybe like junior year). Anyways, I have the design down and I've already figured out how to implement it so the next time I build a bike trailer I should be able to bypass all the early steps. As of now I probably won't finish but maybe finals week will give me an abundance of time.