[Clement] Sees The Cargo Bike And Raises A Bicycle Cargo Trailer

[Clement] and his friends were going on a long bike tour and needed a way to carry their gear along with them. They set to work and managed to build this cargo trailer from mostly reused materials.

The only part of this trailer that is reused junk is the connection mechanism that lets you attach it to just about any bike. That was made (presumably in a machine shop) to act as a removable pipe clamp, making it pretty quick to swap between different bikes. It has a universal joint welded to it so that the angle of the seat post won’t affect how the trailer rides.

A goose neck keeps the trailer far enough back to avoid getting in the way of the rear wheel. The mesh basket was made from parts of an old industrial machine. The rear wheel is attached with a swing-arm that has what looks like a rubber bumper to act as a shock absorber. But if you want to make sure a big bump doesn’t send your luggage flying, [Clement] included a picture at the bottom of his post showing a much nicer spring shock on a different bike trailer.

If you’re confused by the title of this post you must have missed the cargo bike that was recently featured.

16 thoughts on “[Clement] Sees The Cargo Bike And Raises A Bicycle Cargo Trailer

  1. “The only part of this trailer that is reused junk is the connection mechanism that lets you attach it to just about any bike.”

    I think you meant “traile that isn’t reused” because you would be contradicting yourself if that were the case.

  2. When I was about 15 my brother and I built a boat trailer for a 14 ft john boat and its 9hp engine. This trailer was built on the fly out of wood to pull that boat by bike.

    It worked, but it was quite a workout pulling it, I wish I had pics.

  3. “The only part of this trailer that *ISN’T* reused junk is the connection mechanism”

    There, I fixed it :)

    That being said, the first thing I thought of when I saw this picture was the baby trailer suggested by Hirudinea. What I want to see is a cheap, reliable design for adult training wheels or a trike that isn’t $700 or more. Stepson and wife would love to be able to ride with me, but neither is safe on a two-wheeler.

  4. One issue I have with this style of trailer is the loading on the rear rim – fine if you’re only tootling down a light track or only carrying bulk not weight, but if you’re carrying a lot of weight I wuold rather not have that loading my rear wheel so heavily – a balanced trailer with a central wheel would be approx the same length but load only (or rather primarily) the trailer axle.

    1. of course doing that would cost you cargo space, width, or height.

      Anyways,most of the time, you could probably load most of the heavy stuff near the trailer wheel, and the light stuff near the hitch end and be fine most of the time. I have seen people go bike camping without a trailer. Having done a small amount of backpacking, I’d say they are loaded with ~40 Lbs of stuff when they do that.

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