Double Your Pleasure with a DIY Bike Trailer
Riding a bicycle is a fun and sustainable way to get around, plus get great exercise. And with a good cart in tow, a bike can be almost as useful as a car. With this easy-to-make pull-behind cart, you can transport all kinds of things, including a week’s worth of groceries, plants from the nursery, or bags of bottles and cans for the recycling center.
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While most ready-made bicycle carts sell for about $300, anyone who can use a drill, hammer, saw and screwdriver can make a sturdy, useful cart for about a third of that cost.
The most crucial components of a bicycle trailer are the wheels. Your best bet will be to scavenge a usable pair from an old bicycle or check with a bicycle repair shop for used wheels. When hunting for bargain wheels, look for relatively small wheels with a thick axle, ideally rear wheels, which are often heavier and stronger than front ones.
Your finished carrier should prove invaluable in handling any number of homestead chores. Just take it easy when going over bumps, be sure to weight any heavy loads toward the front of the cart, and bear in mind that your two-wheeler is now a wider, four-tired conveyance, and you shouldn't have any problem getting used to riding with the trailer in tow.
To read more about our famous “Dime On a Dollar” bike cart, including detailed plans for building it, click here.
Other creative folks have designed unique bicycle trailers using unusual materials, such as a large ice cooler or a grocery store cart. To see these DIY bicycle carts, check out the Web sites below. And if you've built your own pull-behind bicycle cart, share your experiences by posting a comment below.
RESOURCES
http://www.bicyclelaneindustries.com/bli/cartbike/
The folks above have a good plan for a bicycle cart; however, we recommend that you come by your shopping cart, which is one of the components, in a legal way.
http://bikecart.pedalpeople.com/plans.html
http://drumbent.com/trailer.html
William Sullivan, the “Dime-on-a-Dollar Bicycle Trailer” author, wrote a book in 1983, The Cart Book with Plans and Projects. It includes plans for a dog cart, wheelchair cart, pony cart, push cart and a garden cart. The book is out of print, but you might be able to find it at your local library, or buy a used copy online.