Environmental Design: Bicycle Trailer - #3

PART 3: MAIDEN VOYAGE

In this video I take a quick look at my prototype being brought to life in the real world, doing as it was designed to do. In a drive spanning approximately halfway across the city, I was able to take the bike and trailer on a test run out as far as the old Convergys parking lot. This is roughly in the 8-12 kilometer distance.

Naturally, I did this on a night run because I prefer quiet and moonlight instead of traffic and noise. It gets pretty congested in some parts of town during the daytime, and on top of it, we had foul weather coming in. Temperatures were dipping below zero and the winds just begun to pick up when I shot this.

Still, I was really stoked at seeing how the project turned out, ESPECIALLY realizing that as long as a trailer has two wheels, it generally tends to drive straight as long as it's on a solid tow bar. The delays and extra planning were worth it, though ... I also ran some updates to the mount for the hitch, but these were very minor and only done so as to facilitate mounting of the U-bolts.

I'll be adding more to this series in upcoming weeks, along with scheduling a daylight test run and a full workup, along with a hauling demonstration. Those who are interested in this design can learn more about it from these, and I will be updating crimsonhalo.com with them as I have the time.

As noted earlier, carrying capacity is intended to be 150 pounds (conservatively). I'm sure I could do a lot more but one must also be concerned with braking distance and overall safety margins when taking on projects like this. If you can't operate it safely on the road, why build it?

On that note, did you see the lights and reflectors? They ensure visibility at night and compliance with BC traffic regulations. I spoke with a By-Laws officer in the Kamloops area as well as consulted the MVA on this stuff before building, and verified it was OK to run a bike trailer as long as it complies with current vehicle laws.

The looks other drivers gave me, however, were priceless. It reminded me of that pilot in the movie 'Rocketeer' ... you know, when Cliff glances his way, then the pilot basically looks back, eyes wide, as if to say OMG WTF?

Few people in my city have seen a bike trailer up close, nevermind owned one ... hopefully that's going to change some day. :)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• enviro
• environment
• environmental
• design
• carbon
• neutral
• engineering
• diy
• do-it-yourself
• do
• it
• yourself
• bicycle
• bike
• hybrid
• mtb
• roadbike
• road
• street

[crimsonhalo13]

@arturesfihas - Thanks for the note. I'm due to reshoot this segment in the near future anyways, it wasn't intended to stay up this long.

[arturesfihas]

Good solution for the coupling, but as this set on the bike, the movie is very dark