Building a bicycle trailer

I had thought about building a bike trailer, but I bought one from the small ads in VeloVision. It still needs quite a lot of work - see some photos. (I have changed the way the towbar attaches to the trailer since then, and the hideous shimmy it had is now fixed, or at least vastly reduced.)

But here are some links to DIY trailers:

• Community Bike Cart Design
• http://www.re-cycle.org/trailer/ (and a copy of the PDF version I found when re-cycle.org was down)
• http://www.carryfreedom.com/bamboo.html
• http://www.eland.org.uk/pages/trailer2.html
• http://trailers.xntrick.co.uk
• http://practicalaction.org/docs/technical_information_service/bicycle_trailers.pdf (linked page isn't a PDF, it's now a text page with PDF link on it).
• http://www.compbio.dundee.ac.uk/~dmamartin/trailer/trailer.html
• http://www.instructables.com/id/ENK7HBIQG6EP286RJK/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/84649987@N00/tags/trailer/
• http://www.mozbike.com/build/shoptrailer/ (now in a a small production run)
• http://howtofixbikes.blogspot.com articles: one, two, three.
• Bikes At Work have trailers which can be customised with your own platform or support on their "spine".

Some load carrying alternatives to trailers:

• Xtracycle (UK distributer) An extension that bolts on the back of a standard bike, allowing cargo bags much larger than typical panniers and a "deck" that doubles as a passenger seat.
• Loads Better have a variety of load carrying or heavy duty bikes, including the Xtracycle and (coming soon) the Yuba Mondo.
• The Kona Ute looks like a similar sort of thing to the Yuba.
• Surly Big Dummy, a frame dedicated to taking the Xtracycle accessories without needing the extension piece.
• Stokemonkey is an electric hub motor adapted as a bottom bracket drive for a Xtracycle or similar (it won't fit on a standard bike frame).
• Cargocycle, another extension, which takes a large box.
• 8-Freight, a purpose built bike with load area behind the cyclist.
• http://www.mozbike.com/build/binbike/, a bike with large load platforms above 20" wheels (built after his long bike cracked).
• WorldBike aims at providing cheap xtrabike-like load carriers to developing countries
• Project Rwanda and Kona Bike Town also have African bicycle related material (including wooden bikes taking huge loads in Rwanda).
• Practical Action (formerly ITDG) have a bicycles factsheet as well as the trailers one above, which also has designs for load carrying extensions.
• Xtracycle fitted to LWB recumbent, and a Greenspeed load carrying trike

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