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Free Bicycle Trailer Plans
This trailer design is similar to the B.O.B. Yak, but it is only similar. I made this trailer out of 3/4" aluminum tubing and the "floor" is made of a poly mesh fabric secured to the frame by Velcro straps. It cost me about $60 USD to make this trailer, however I did have some scrap aluminum stock and the poly mesh fabric on hand. The majority of the material can be ordered from McMaster.com. To test the trailer I loaded it with 60lbs of camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, gallon of water, and some other heavy stuff) and rode it to work and back (31 miles round trip). The route consisted of some nice smooth paved roads and some rough washboard gravel roads. It passed the test with no problems. I mainly use the trailer for hauling my son (35lbs) to and from the local grocery store and to commute to work. I originally built it for an extended tour that I will do some day.
I realize that it costs money for companies to design, produce, test and advertise their trailers, but I didn't want to spend $200-$300 on one at the local bike shop. I think that bicycling should be a cheap form of transportation that anyone can enjoy.
Take a look at the detail sheets and tell me what you think. I created this trailer design using a CAD package called Solidworks which is an excellent 3D solid modeling tool. The detail sheets were quickly put together without much time spent on proof reading them, so you might come across a typo here and there.
I had to divide up the files into different zip files due to the web servers limit of a 512kb maximum file size.
mainsheetdwg.zip (430kb) AutoCAD r12 format. This file contains the main assembly and B.O.M.
sheets1-4dwg.zip (136kb) AutoCAD r12 format. This file contains the 4 detail sheets.
trailerdxf.zip (404kb) Works with any CAD program. This file contains all 5 detail drawing sheets on one zip file.
For those of you who do not have a CAD program.
main-sheet.jpg (270kb)
sheet-1.jpg (103kb)
sheet-2.jpg (107kb)
sheet-3.jpg (156kb)
sheet-4.jpg (87kb)
Sometime in the future I might post assembly procedures to aid in the building of the trailer, but don't hold your breath, I am always thinking of a different project to get myself into. For example right now I am in the very rough design stages of a bicycle trailer with three wheels that will be large enough to crawl into and sleep in. It will have a "pop-up" type roof on it with an access door built into one of the sides along with retractable stabilizers that will help keep the trailer from tipping while you lay in it. I'm trying to eliminate erecting a tent at the end of a long day on the road while keeping the whole thing as light as possible. I'm not sure where the design is going, it is probably a bad idea, but I am having fun coming up with ideas. I will be posting CAD models of it throughout the design process.
Email me, Jon Marshall at bugnut@cybersol.com for any questions or comments.
Last updated 9.27.00
