Trailer Made
from a Garage-Sale Bike
This is a shopping trailer I made in the mid 1990s from a bike I got a
garage sale. The idea was to re-use scrap materials as much as
possible while making a highly practical trailer. Its feature
include:
- Lockable container so you can leave stuff in it when you go in a
store.
- Locking hitch secures the trailer to the bike.
- Rotating pedal sticking up in the air. The former rear
wheel is flipped around so that when the bike is moving forward, the
freewheel doesn't freewheel, and it drives the chain which drives the
crank. It's on the side facing traffic, so cars give you a wide
berth. It also makes pedestrians give you strange looks, even in
Berkeley, CA.
The trailer works pretty well, but has a high center of gravity and so
is easy to tip when cornering.
It uses all the members of the original bike frame, plus a light and
sturdy aluminum truss stabilized laterally by steel cables.