View Single Post
  #3  
Old April 13th 15, 01:43 PM posted to aus.bicycle
F Murtz[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 193
Default Thinking of building a touring trailer: looking for parts

news13 wrote:
On Sat, 14 Feb 2015 14:47:47 +1000, Stuart Longland wrote:


Intended terrain would be mostly "on-road", where "road" can vary from
good quality bitumen through to state forest fire trails, etc.

I have a Croozer cargo trailer which is mostly okay, but I'm concerned
about a few things:


The two basic designs are single wheel like the bob style or double wheel
like all the kiddie trailers, which you've got.

Single wheel styles are useful as there is only one track, so you can
minimise bumps, rocks, punctures, etc. If you want a standard wheel in
the trailer, then it is a custom build. You can build the bnob/jack
london sytle flatbed style or you can build a "chinese wheel barrow style
with low rider panniers on either side.

- the wheels are a small less-common size and so getting tubes and tyres
will be a pain.
- it has a 30kg load limit: I'll want to carry water and food along with
some camping gear.


My 2c is to invest in solid rack front and back with loaw rider bits and
have four panniers. The lower the weight the more stable your bicycle and
the easier to keep it upright. I always preferred to carry the weight on
the bicycle first for touring. If it didn't fit, then you had too much.

On long dry trips, I've carried 2x5L bottles in medium size panniers on
the front rack and picked up best water as we went along. These days, I'd
strongly suggest a good filter pump for all water collected.

I had the advantage of being able to sew up my own with old domestic
sewing machines. They wore out fast but were relatively cheap. I don't
know how you'd get on with the plastic gears they use these days.


Does anyone know places in Australia that sell 29" front-wheels at a
reasonable price? Any places sell used wheels?


Sigh, the world has moved on yet again. My mum and dad rode on 28" tyres,
I road on 27' and used 26" for touring. Now they are up to 29".

On the actual trailer design, I've been fiddling around in OpenSCAD
modelling various aspects. At the moment I'm thinking of doing it with
box-section aluminium, as 20-25mm section is pretty common and seems to
have quite a bit of strength.


Can you weld? A few years prior, I'd recommend going to tafe and learning
TIG welding and doing a few foreign orders. No idea how you'd get on now.

at one stage, various AID agency had plans for easy to build bicycle
trailers on the web. I don't know if they are still around, but they were
all two wheel trailers largely of the tea chest carrying design.


but can be fixed with a minimum
of tools if things break.


In Australia, you'd just use aluminium. If you were going elsewhere and
in really remote, you'd make it out of steel as they use car batteries
for welding.

I think British Steels was the supplier of bicycle frame quality steel in
Australia, but i believe they have closed down.

For this reason I'm looking at bolting the sections together.


Fiddly and requires experience to do properly and not tear out.

I note places like Bunnings sell 25mm section and a range of plastic
joiners (QubeLock/Connect-IT brands): does anyone know how strong these
are


You can test them buy buying two long section(1m) of box section and
fastening one end and putting full force on the other and see what fails
first. I'm not impressed by tyhem. YMMV.

or know of where one can get aluminium equivalents? Anyone tried
building something with this stuff for a mobile situation?


I've always fiddled with steel from street finds in the past. YMMV.

Test
Ads
 

Home - Home - Home - Home - Home