Functional bikes. Not Porn not Anti

It was singlespeeded as I was using it as a beater for about a year. It's absolutely knackered now though. Bent axles front and rear, bent dropout and BB has about an inch of play in it. Also no saddle or seatpost (oversize tubing is reasonably comfortable to sit on though). I'm not gonna bother saving it, just needs too much work to make it rideable. It's the townsend mtb in the Rat Bikes thread.

I will never be totally car free, as I have a young family, and live in a place with little in the way of public transport. I try to look at it as minimising my car journeys. Both the kids love using the trailer, and I'm always glad of the exercise.The main resistance I get is the amount of time that I waste. This I dont understand, time in the saddle is time used for exercise, and switching off the days stress. Time in the car is wasted time.

Anyway. I love Ed's Parcel bike, and void. I'm all about being a smug douche.

I too went totally car free last winter and annoyingly I've had to rent a van a couple of times since then to move house with.

That's the beauty of being Car free... if you really need a car/van for something there's rental places and it won't break the bank. Not sure why it's annoying? Being car free and renting once or twice isn't like being veggie and eating bacon butties every now and then is it?

Car replacement mode;

Nice!

That's the beauty of being Car free... if you really need a car/van for something there's rental places and it won't break the bank. Not sure why it's annoying? Being car free and renting once or twice isn't like being veggie and eating bacon butties every now and then is it?

Tried the veggie thing a couple of times, but roast chicken always tempted me back to the dark side.

I wouldn't mind hiring a van to move stuff to the other side of the country annoying, but both my partner and I are students and we move house quite often (rent a house/flat from september-june then a bedsit from june-september, changing houses every year). The stuff we have to move isn't particularly large (mostly boxes of books, clothes and kitchen stuff) but it is quite heavy. Taxis and men-with-ven are just as expensive as hiring a van for a couple of hours. Also it'd be useful for shopping and picking stuff up from out-of-town depots - about once a month I have to take a taxi to a depot/workshop/powdercoater in a countryside business park and it's usually a £20 round trip (so if I spend even £50 on making a good trailer it'll save money within three months).

Also it's a self-sufficiency thing. I'm all for pragmatism but I think I'd rather know that even if I had no money/all the petrol has run out/lose my drivers licence, I'd still be able to move stuff around. Plus it helps raise awareness of utility cycling in the UK (which is pretty good in York actually, there are a few cargo bike couriers around)

Think I spotted Ed's bike in condor yesterday, was that you? Looks good.

I think you did, was getting some bar tape for the road bike.

both my partner and I are students and we move house quite often (rent a house/flat from september-june then a bedsit from june-september, changing houses every year). The stuff we have to move isn't particularly large (mostly boxes of books, clothes and kitchen stuff) but it is quite heavy. Taxis and men-with-ven are just as expensive as hiring a van for a couple of hours. Also it'd be useful for shopping and picking stuff up from out-of-town depots - about once a month I have to take a taxi to a depot/workshop/powdercoater in a countryside business park and it's usually a £20 round trip (so if I spend even £50 on making a good trailer it'll save money within three months).

This is what friends and trailer are for.

A forum member was moving flat, admittedly a very short distance from her pervious flat, she borrowed a Surly Big Dummy from work, and I brought my makeshift trailer, she have a lots of stuff, but it only take a couple hours to move it all.

Recently the missus have to packed everything and put them in storage in Wimbledon from Clerkenwell (11 miles), she have a lots of stuff and I mean a lots, so as a solution, I've been using my trailer to carry 100kg worth of stuff to Wimbledon on a regular basis, sometime twice in one day, it was exhausting, but the key point is this; free.

The fact that it's free is worth doing, even if I have to go back and forth 10 time to empty her flat (and that included carrying her desk, wardrobe etc.).

That makeshift trailer is the forum's own (me and clefty donated it), so anyone who need a trailer will able to borrow that trailer, and pass it along etc.

It took 100kg on one load?

my CarryFreedom one does (max 90kg), i exceed it once by having 120kg, but the trailer shoulder on, might need a bigger cog one size up on the bike to compensate though as I only use the first three gear, and the 1st when there's a slight incline;

the makeshift one, I doubt it can carry that much, but should be fine with heavy boxes, it's worth noting that a light trailer make a huge difference, a heavy one will be very crumblesome, the makeshift one was heavy, which were very noticable, especially with the additional weight and find my journey time increased noticably.

I'm going to try and get a second trailer that'll attached to the back of the Carry Freedom one (designed to), this way I can take twice the stuff and cut my return trip in half.

What do you think a reasonable weight for a trailer is?

Mine is 7kg, which is a pretty good weight for a trailer, the fact it made of alu mean it won't flex as much as the previous steel one I had.

Let says 10kg would be a reasonable weight.

CarryFreedom spec.

Judging by this house-moving-by-bike company in Montreal, I don't think there is a limit!

http://www.demenagementmyette.ca/photos/

There's a limit on a certain trailer, rather than a limit on how much you can pull in general (which varies on the bicycle, a close ratio hubs gear and disc brakes is on the top of my list).

You can get some proper industrial trailer like this;

Had no problems with fatigue strength of alu I presume? I like the idea of aluminium but it's harder to weld so it might have to be steel anyway.

Nope, I chosen the Carry Freedom as it's the best, most reliable and robust one out there, as for alu being harder to weld;

Redundancy Peace of mind for those far from the beaten track. If the frame welds fail, the trailer can work until repair, be it bolted or welded. Any local blacksmith can make a pattern trailer from steel. No component is rare or irreplaceable.

Having said that, I'd have gotten the Surly one were they're around at the time, I could not able to carry several piece of a fallen tree on it and have to resort to using a vehicles (max load - 300lbs);

Mine - just back from powdercoaters today and built back up this afternoon.

Pashley Mail Star/Pronto.
3 Speed Sturmey Archer, drum brakes front and rear, rear rack, fittings for front rack.
Since I went totally car free last year I've needed a cargo bike, here she is. Going to use it for shopping, post office runs and just for the hell of it I am planning to do some long distance in the summer too.

thats some hot shit. Always wanted a bike with drum brakes. Stoked for you...

^ want lots of those trailers!

I use one of these, currently shifting 9 wheels (8 bmx size fit neatly in, with 1 MTB wheel on top), 8 pumps, and other teaching resources for puncture repair. Find the side walls useful for holding stuff in...

Had to use a similar trailer for my old job. I would deliver fairly large trees and bags of compost. It really maxed the little trailer.

as for alu being harder to weld

Nah the reason I mentioned welding is because I would be making it myself, mostly for fun, and also because mass-produced trailers are necessarily built to be cost-effective rather than for best performance i.e. they are designed to be very quick to build because labour is expensive. Unfortunately the type of structure with the highest strenth/weight ratio is a spaceframe/tube frame which necessarily has very high labour costs due to complexity - the ladder chassis used by every trailer I've seen is very quick and simple to build but quite flexible and heavy. My thinking was that I have a lot of free time and my labour is effectively free. However I'm not skilled enough to weld or braze aluminium with low wall thickness, hence making it from steel.

Lae,

If you look at most of the typical trailers like the "bumper" one above, you will notice that very little of it is actually welded together. The "tub" is made of folded sheet metal, which is riveted to a frame that is bolted together.

Yeah I know. Bolts and rivets are heavier, weaker and more flexible than welding. The reason why mass produced trailers are attached with fasteners is speed of production/labour/tooling costs (i.e. it's cheaper to pay an untrained labourer with a rivet gun than a buy welding robot or pay a professional manual welder) and, if bolts are used rather than rivets, dismantleability.

Lae, that should be a good start;

http://www.carryfreedom.com/bamboo.html

I did some nice doodles of trailers last night. I'll either scan them or make CAD models (which should also give me a fairly accurate indication of weight too).

here's my cargo steed. use it so much. I'm starting to love the heavily laden feel, especially when you have a 15kg child on the back plus 20kg on the front. This frame is really stiff and quite high as well, not the smoothest of rides but I love it.

I'm currently turning one of these
https://www.velorution.biz/shop/images/2930

into one of these
http://www.velorution.biz/images/christiania_highbox_brown_l.jpg

I've got a sturmey 5 speed wheel for it. what would you recomend for a lowest gear? something around 25" of even lower? will do hills with several children (up forest hill to the horniman!) so don't want to be too high.

much lower than that, you want to able to pedal comfortably on a steep hill.

but personally a bakfiet would be a better idea.