John's Wheelchair Revisioned as Bike Trailer

John sent us images of his bike trailer that he fashioned over the weekend from an old wheelchair. Recycling and DIY mixed together are always great to see.

From John’s blog Hacking 5hit:

“It started as two pieces of 1/2″emt (electrical conduit, $1.80ea @ Lowe’s), an old wheelchair discovered in a pile of junk behind someone’s house (I paid them $20, probably could have been free), a piece of uni-strut from a garbage can outside WSECU in downtown Olympia, an air-hose coupling from Harbor Freight (already had this but not more than $2 new) and the bin was ~$12 on sale @ one of the big Lowe’s-Depot stores. There is a little bit of aluminum angle stock from my scrap bin and a bit of scrap hose for the flexible bit of the hitch.

Some creative bending, a hacksaw and dremel, plus a little barely adequate welding (read: ugly) yields a surprisingly strong trailer. I weigh about 215lbs and it didn’t even budge under my weight. I toted home my full weeks groceries in it without a problem. It tracks great, and with the large wheels has no problem going over curbs. I kept the C.O.B. low and it seems to be happy with that. It seems very light, I haven’t weighed it yet, but I can lift it easily (my guess is about 30lbs).”

Post navigation